Expungement / Sealing of Florida Records:
One Record Only?
You can have the charges for one Florida criminal history
record sealed or expunged using the
regular seal or expungement process
in Section 943.0585 or 943.059, Florida Statutes. This applies to felony and misdemeanor charges.
One exception to this one-record-limit is if a court finds that one or more arrests are
directly related. The court can order the related arrests sealed or expunged, if the person
and records are otherwise eligible. This seldom happens.
Once you use the regular process to either seal or expunge a record, you will
not be able to seal or expunge a different Florida criminal history record using
the regular process.
However, if you have a Florida criminal history record expunged through a
different process, for example, through
juvenile diversion expungement
or administrative expungement,
you may be able to use the regular seal or expungement process to seal or expunge
another Florida record, if you are eligible.
If you already had a record sealed or expunged in another jurisdiction, you will
not be able to use the Florida process to seal or expunge any Florida
criminal history record.
Other states have similar restrictions, prohibiting the sealing or expunging of
more than one criminal record.
If you have one or more criminal records in other states, in addition to your
Florida record, you should carefully consider your options before sealing or expunging
any of your records, in any state. It is likely that you will have only one opportunity
to seal or expunge.
The "seal or expunge once" restriction does not prohibit you
from applying for a certificate of eligibility more than once, if you were
not successful in obtaining a court order to seal or expunge any of your
records previously. You will have to pay the state application fee
with each application.
If you had a Florida record sealed for ten years, due to certain
requirements in Florida law, and you now want to have that record expunged
using the regular expunge process, the Florida "seal or expunge once"
restriction does not apply to you. If you are eligible to expunge under current law,
you can apply to have that record expunged.
If the Florida record you want to seal or expunge is a juvenile record,
find out if you are eligible for juvenile diversion expungement first. Using
that process will not automatically prohibit you from using the regular seal
or expunge process for a different record.
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