Legal Question in Civil Litigation in Virginia

Re: Correcting and Updating Criminal Background records

From your description it would appear that you received the disposition for your criminal charges known in the Commonwealth

as a Suspended Imposition of Sentence(SIS) which

is normally available only to first time misdemeanor offenders and is analogous to what other jurisdictions term PBJ(Probation Before Judgment).

As a practical matter this means that you entered a plea of guilty before a judge of the

General District Court but since the sentence was not imposed, you would not have been formally convicted of the charges if you sucessfully completed all of the conditions of your probation. (Adjudication of guilt[whether by plea or verdict]+ sentence imposed = conviction). After one year from your entry of the plea, the case should have been formally closed or dismissed and the court record noted to reflect this action.

You should check with the clerk of the court responsible for your case(criminal division)to

ensure that the court file correctly reflects the disposition "Dismissed" rather than "Guilty"

and that whatever corrective actions that are required to emend faulty information in applicable databases are in fact carried out.