Legal Question in Criminal Law in Virginia

Re: expungment of federal court records

To the extent that someone pleads guilty, they are admitting that the charges are true (those that they plead guilty to, maybe not all), and waiving any objections and accepting the punishment for it. Part of the punishment includes a criminal "record" that the crime occurred and that they agreed with it. So having the crime on their record is really part of the punishment.

However, after a person has served all time that was ordered and has paid all costs, and after all probation time has passed, and the person has shown they are now a good citizen for some period of time, it may be possible to have the record expunged. However, the normal situation is that the record tells the truth about what happened, that a crime occurred,and that the person agreed with it. (This is why we don't recommend pleading guilty.)

Because expunging the record is not the normal situation, I would recommend getting a criminal defense attorney to help you do it. The "record" is there for a reason, to publicly announce what actually happened. To have it expunged is to go against the purpose of having public records. So there has to be a good reason for it.