Expunctions Related to Cases Dismissed after Completion of Pre-Trial Diversion or Intervention Programs

Pre-trial intervention program. Like we said, a pre-trial intervention program allows somebody to get an expunction as soon as they complete the program. Now these are going to be your programs, it says ‘ authorized by government code 76.001’ these are programs that are done by, a joint program between the probation department and the prosecutor’s office. So, it’s not probation, it’s not a deferred prosecution, it’s just from the prosecutor. But in many counties you have these pre-trial intervention programs and you can do those immediately upon completion. But beware of waiver clauses. Nowadays, more and more of these intervention programs have waivers in them that say; that the person agrees that they will not seek expunction of the records or at least the pretrial intervention program can keep some information on them. So, just beware of what you’re telling your clients, can be done if they have a pretrial intervention. Another, if the case has been filed, if the presentment was made because of mistake, false information or other similar reason indicating lack of probable cause. This is very different from, just not having insufficient evidence. If you’re going to apply for an expunction based on, that was based on a mistake and false information you have to prove two things; you have to prove that the false information actually led to the person being indicted and that was also the reason that the case was dismissed. So that’s a, it sounds great, I mean my clients will tell me, “yeah the whole thing’s been a mistake” you know, well that’s not going to be enough to get you to do an expunction without wavering the statute limitations. Unless you can prove that it was false information and that was also the reason that it would. That’s why it was indicted and also the reason why it was dismissed.