Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

Penal Code 1385 authorizes a judge to dismiss a criminal charge in the interest of justice, which can include a lack of evidence. However, a 1385 dismissal does not result in sealing or destruction of court records.

In order to have the record of your arrest destroyed, the court would have to find that you were factually innocent. This does not happen automatically when a case is dismissed, or even when a person is found not guilty at trial. A separate motion for finding of factual innocence has to be filed with the court.

The dismissed case is still part of court records. However,California Labor Code �432.7 says employers can't ask about any arrest that didn't result in a conviction, inquire about it from other sources or use it in a hiring decision.

Most non-government employers also will not have access to Live Scan records, which are used for computerized searches of fingerprints.