Legal Question in Criminal Law in Iowa

The good news is that you can say without any qualification that you have never been convicted of a felony. The file is supposed to be moved to the deferred judgment docket and only limited access is granted to it for law enforcement purposes.

The bad news comes in two separate and distinct packages.

First, the DCI keeps a record of it and when someone in Iowa fills out a job application, the standard request is to ask for a waiver so they can pull your criminal record if any. Don't check the box? You won't get hired. Check the box, they'll see a certain amount of information and you'll have some explaining to do.

I suggest that you contact your attorney and have her write up an opinion letter on the subject of deferred judgments and how it applies in your case so that if this becomes an issue you can present it to a potential employer.

The second bad news package is that you now have a file in the NCIS-the federal National Crime Information System database. Access to that is pretty much limited to law enforcement, and to employers in certain classes of jobs that might require a security clearance or in the human services field.

The best advertisement that this program works is that in your case it was a success and I applaud your efforts.

Best of luck.