Legal Question in Criminal Law in Ohio

Re: I Espungements

The answer to your question depends on the license for which you are applying. Expungment of a criminal conviction does, as a general rule, give you the right to legally answer "NO" to the question "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?", but there are exceptions.

The biggest exception is when the crime of conviction relates to the license for which you are applying. A good example would be if you were applying for a license to be a mortgage broker but you had a prior conviction for stealing money from your clients when you were previously licensed as a mortage broker. That conviction, although expunged, could be relevant to whether you should be granted a license as a mortgage broker today.

If you have any doubts, you could hire an attorney to help you with the license application. Sometimes the board which issues the license will also have information available to help you respond.

You do want to make sure that you answer the question correctly. Failure to correctly answer the question is often grounds to deny the license you seek.

Re: I Espungements

Having your record sealed (or expunged) is a great thing! If the court did order your case sealed (expunged) then you do not have to report the conviction on job applications etc. Under Ohio law,after on order sealing the case, the case "shall be considered not to have occurred."

The case could be revived in the event you have another criminal conviction but otherwise you should be ok to not mention it.

You should not leave the information regarding your conviction off of the application forms on the basis of what I have told you. The information is valid but it's application to you is what you need to be concerned about. I would strongly suggest that you have an attorney check things out to make sure that the record was properly sealed. It is not unusual for cases to remain visible to the public because someone did not follow through as they should have.

Where was your conviction? What Court? You can give me call if you like and I will try to answer your questions.