| Criminal procedure law--all states?
What is the name of your state? NY. I am curious to find out about how other states make provisions for sealing/expungement of arrests that didn't lead to criminal convictions. In NY for example, an arrest that lead to a dismissal, a decline prosecution, an ACD or an acquittal gets sealed under criminal procedure law 160.50 which was passed in 1976.This sealing order says that all criminal records such as fingerprints, DA papers, police records, mugshots get sealed and cannot be accessed by any public or private agency except for law enforcement in the event of an application for a license to possess guns. In addition, in a 160.50 sealing the court disposition is sealed. Also NY state is required to forward an expungement order to the FBI telling them to purge their files of everything pertaining to this arrest event. Then there is criminal law code 160.60(recently passed) which legally permits the defendant to answer "no" to a question of "have you ever been arrested" if you have a 160.50 sealed arrest.
Then there is criminal code 160.55(passed 1980) which is a sealing order of an arrest that led to conviction of a non-criminal violation such as disorderly conduct or harrassment. All criminal records mentioned above under 160.50 are sealed except for the court disposition which remains open.
My question is does the US consitution suggest that individual states enact sealing/expungement laws for arrests that did not lead to convictions, or is this entirely up to the individual states? Are there other states where someone who was arrested but was not convicted(ie dismissed, acquitted) still has an open record of an arrest? | 
03-26-2006, 01:39 PM
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