no public record found When I was 18 I broke the law, was convicted and had to pay restitution. Recently I hired a lawyer to expunge my record. I paid up front and then later was told that they could not find any flies on me. I decided to search myself. I just got a letter back from the city I was arrested in and they said that I had no files. If I decide to register to vote and/or register a gun and there is still a record, what kind of punishment would happen? I have kept the literature, where I was told that I have a clean record from the lawyer and the city I was charged in. Is here any other way to see if I can find my records? I am thinking that since it was from so long ago (32 years ago) that the records might have been deleted. Probably a bad assumption. I just don't know what else to do.
It's not clear which &quot;they&quot; reported having no records, but you need to check with the court that convicted you. The police often destroy records decades before the courts will. Even if the court has no such record, I would be concerned about a record of your conviction existing in the national databases like NCIC. To address that, I would file a motion to expunge your conviction and then either get an order saying that the motion was granted, or that there is no conviction to expunge. I wouldn't rely on anything other than a court order. Until then, my instinct would be to simply answer honestly any questions put to you when registering as a voter or firearm owner. I don't believe it's illegal to submit an application when you have a criminal record, though I'm confident it would be illegal to lie on the application. (The actual answer to this question would depend on your jurisdiction, which you haven't provided. You should consult a lawyer to get a reliable answer.) It also occurs to me that you may simply be mistaken in believing that you were convicted. Frequently, courts will allow someone to enter some kind of conditional plea but refrain from entering a conviction if they behave themselves or meet some other criteria. If the court is satisfied with the defendant's performance, the charges may be dismissed altogether and eventually automatically expunged.
Is it possible to become a lawyer if you have a record? Yes. But, it is also possible to refuse to admit someone to the practice of law based upon a criminal record. The decision is made by a "character and fitness" committee of a state's bar admission system after someone has finished law school and passed the academic part of the bar exam. If one state doesn't accept someone based upon a criminal record, another state could make a different decision. Your partner might be well advised to confer with experts on the issue to determine the likelihood that their particular criminal record would be a problem before making this huge investment of time and money and effort. If they decide to go through with it, would they be treated differently in the law community? Probably not. Nothing advertises to the legal community that someone has or does not have a criminal record. You are either admitted to the bar, or you are not. Your character and fitness application is private. If somebody finds out, that could impact how the person who finds out acts, just as it could in any other pursuit. But, someone would not be justified in treating a lawyer with a criminal record differently, for example, in case management issues or discovery plans, than someone without a criminal records, except in cases where national security clearances are required (a tiny subset of legal practice).
Since you asked, and it's a perfectly legitimate question, here's why it doesn't violate the Fifth Amendment (from Garner v. US): The Fifth Amendment doesn't say "you can't be made to say anything that hurts you." It says "no person...shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." The only time Fifth Amendment protection applies is if you are being forced by the government to make a statement that could open you up to an accusation or conviction of a criminal offense. It's fairly broad (if it would help prove any aspect of the charge, you can claim immunity), but it's also restricted (you can't claim it unless it really would tend to incriminate you). That means that you could only argue the Fifth Amendment if your tax return might help prove a criminal case against you (the fact that disclosing income leads to you needing to pay tax does not qualify as "self-incrimination"). But the amount of income is not one of those things that might incriminate you -- you can get income through all sorts of ways. The thing that is incriminating is revealing the source of the income, and you can claim Fifth Amendment privilege for that. So: The only time you could possibly claim privilege is if you were being forced into a statement that might tend to incriminate you in a criminal proceeding. A statement that makes you liable for tax doesn't mean it might incriminate you. Filing an income tax return isn't inherently incriminating. The fact that you have income not included in any other part of the return (illegal income goes under "other income") doesn't imply you've committed a crime -- lots of people have other income. The amount of income can't be incriminating. The source can be, but you can claim Fifth Amendment privilege for that if it might incriminate you. And lawful income under "other income" still might give rise to a reasonable fear of prosecution, so the fact that you're justified in claiming Fifth Amendment privilege in source of income doesn't mean you're guilty of a crime. Note that there are cases where you are flat-out exempt from filing tax returns under the Fifth Amendment: Marchetti v. US and Grosso v. US found that registration and tax on gambling could be blocked by a Fifth Amendment claim, which didn't even have to be asserted at time of filing, because merely filing the special return would establish you as a gambler (heavily regulated/often criminalized at the state level). The difference with the normal income tax form is that everyone (just about) files one, and so filing it doesn't mean you're a criminal. If there was a separate line along the lines of "Income from Illegal Drug Sales," that might be one thing (anything other than $0 is inherently incriminating). But all the questions are broad, and have many legal sources of income associated with them.
The location of your residence entrance is irrelevant for the law, what matters most is your "street address", i.e. mailing address. That is the address (therefore city) that you use for voter registration, and basically how you identify "where I live". If you lives 5 miles out in the country in an unincorporated area, you'd still use Needles (e.g.) as you mailing address: but you would not be able to vote for a mayor of Needles, just based on your mailing address. Both municipalities might claim jurisdiction based on the physical location of the property, especially for matters of building code. It should not be possible for both municipalities to tax the full value of your property, but they could split the assessment proportionally. The cities themselves are not collecting the tax, the county is (though property straddling a county line raises an interesting question).
Possibly. I wonder if you mean "convicted" rather than "arrested"? There is no way that he will be "arrested" because you don't accompany him ("arrested" is when he taken by the police before a trial). On the other hand, if he plans to call you as a witness for the defence, then your absence may mean he is convicted at his trial when otherwise he would be found innocent. The final possibility is that you might act as a character witness after conviction, and your absence may mean he is sent to jail rather than fined. It may be possible for you to write a witness statement describing what happened, and to have this notarized. On the other hand, the prosecution may well want to cross examine you. I am pretty sure you can write a character witness statement (saying, if true, that it's a first offence and that you have forgiven him, etc) and get it notarized. That might persuade a court to be lenient. I think you (as a couple) need to talk to his lawyer.
I think this shows a misunderstanding of the meaning of the GDPR. A data subject has the right to demand information, correction, deletion etc. about some of their data held by some institutions, depending on the legal basis for the data processing. One John Smith does not have the right to see the data of any other data subject named John Smith, and he cannot even demand to know if there are other John Smiths in the database. The data controller has to make reasonable steps to ensure that an individual who seeks account information is in fact the individual who is the data subject. In the case of an email, that's usually easy -- if John Smith can access the mail account jsmith@sample.org, one can assume that he is the John Smith who opened the account. If not, then not. If the data controller has the birthplace and birthdate in their records, they can possibly match that against some government-issue identity document, too, but why would they have that data?
The general rule is that "public records" must be disclosed unless they are by definition not public records. This study summarizes US public records law on a state by state basis, if the issue is about the US. Taking Massachusetts as an example, the law defines public record here, so if the item is not a public record, it is not required to disclose the item. Clause 26 has a long list of exceptions such as (j) the names and addresses of any persons contained in, or referred to in, any applications for any licenses to carry or possess firearms issued pursuant to chapter one hundred and forty or any firearms identification cards issued pursuant to said chapter one hundred and forty and the names and addresses on sales or transfers of any firearms, rifles, shotguns, or machine guns or ammunition therefor, as defined in said chapter one hundred and forty and the names and addresses on said licenses or cards ... (o) the home address and home telephone number of an employee of the judicial branch, an unelected employee of the general court, an agency, executive office, department, board, commission, bureau, division or authority of the commonwealth, or of a political subdivision thereof or of an authority established by the general court to serve a public purpose, in the custody of a government agency which maintains records identifying persons as falling within those categories; provided that the information may be disclosed to an employee organization under chapter 150E, a nonprofit organization for retired public employees under chapter 180, or a criminal justice agency as defined in section 167 of chapter 6. (p) the name, home address and home telephone number of a family member of a commonwealth employee, contained in a record in the custody of a government agency which maintains records identifying persons as falling within the categories listed in subclause (o). If the information is not legally a public record, there is no obligation to disclose. There is a general requirement via statute, regulation and court rulings requiring the government to protect personal information, such as this. You can get a list of sources on that topic here. This does not mean that the government body in question can be forced to redact that information, but it is at least possible that there is a (slim) legal basis for requiring them to protect your privacy.
The victim of domestic violence is referred to as the complaining witness. Domestic violence arrests will result in a criminal investigation. It is not up to the complaining witness to determine if charges are brought against the one who was arrested - this is up to the prosecutor. Here is a good article at Findlaw that discusses the process. If the complaining witness recants, the prosecutor may decide to drop the charges. The prosecutor may, though, decide to continue the charges and prosecute the case. The complaining witness in recanting may face charges as well - for example, for making a false police report. If the prosecutor presses the case and your husband is convicted then, yes, it will be on his record. Seeking the advice of a New York attorney who specializes in these matters is the best course of action. EDIT: Here is additional information regarding New York Criminal History Records: New York State law does specify that, unless the court orders otherwise, arrest records are sealed when criminal actions are terminated in favor of the accused - dismissed, found not guilty, etc. This is spelled out in Criminal Procedure Law 160.50. Arrest records are part of the public record until disposition of the case is completed. At New York State's Court web site, you can read about how to get criminal records of anyone - they are public record so anyone can make a request about anyone. There is a fee of $65. Records can be ordered online and the results can be emailed to you. Searches are processed by an exact match of name and date of birth. From their web site you will see that criminal cases transferred or removed to Family Court are not reported. Neither are records for people who had a single misdemeanor conviction over ten years ago or pending criminal cases categorized as Youthful Offender Eligible. Generally speaking, New York criminal cases are part of the public record and are available to anyone unless they meet certain criteria or have been sealed under New York State law. Note that sealing records doesn't mean the record goes away. It just means that the record is not available to the general public without a court order unsealing the record. Here is the link to on-line direct access to records requests: http://www.nycourts.gov/APPS/chrs/onlinedirectaccess.shtml