Help with getting name expunged

[jcthorne]

What is the name of your state? Mississippi

This may be long, but please bare with me.

About a year ago we got a new neighbor that moved in behind us. Everything was well until the developer of the neighborhood called me and informed me that I was a material witness for the new neighbor involving a lawsuit against him. I knew nothing about this and she had claimed that I had seen mold and various issues involving her new home and would testify in a lawsuit against the builder. Well long story short, I went in and testified on the builder/developers behalf because I had never stepped foot in her house or even had a conversation with her involving what she had stated. The case was thrown out and I figured that would be it. I couldn't of been more wrong.

Fast forward a month.... I'm driving home from work on a weekday and my wife calls my cell to inform me that she is being arrested and they had a warrant for my arrest as well. I'm stunned because neither of us have been in trouble with the law and live a quite normal life with no reason to fear being arrested. I get home and sure enough; I am taken in to custody for LEASH LAW VIOLATION and my wife for DOG ORDINANCE.

This seemed quite odd to me because we don't have outside dogs and the dog we do have is a house dog and we have invisible fencing and she only goes out to use the restroom and play under our supervision. Needless to say we were taken to jail and had to bail out for this violation. Let me also state that we have never had a complaint from anyone regarding our dogs.

Well.....you guessed it......the neighbor I had testified against went down and filed charges against us and we were taken to jail on what I thought would of been a simple ticket even if I would of been guilty of her bogus charges.

We went to court and of course the charges were dropped but my wife and I still are in the database and I feel like our names should be expunged for any wrong doings. I also feel that we were unfairly arrested and some kind of repurcusions should be brought forth against the county who arrested us. I understand this will cost money, but I don't feel that we should have to pay to get our name expunged and I also question the legality of the arrest warrant.

Please help me and give me any advice on what I should do or should I just let it go.

Thanks

 

[CavemanLawyer]

You can't hold the county accountable for this. When they receive a complaint from a citizen and it appears valid on its face, they are entitled to follow through and issue a warrant. I can't believe they would issue warrants for these charges, but if the statute authorizes it....

But the bottom line is that there's generally no way the county authorities could know that the allegations were false and brought for the purpose of harassment. Your recourse is to sue that neighbor for malicious prosecution. This is a civil action in which you can receive monetary damages. You can also file your own complaint for that neighbor's false report to a police officer, which is a crime.

As far as expunging your record of arrest, sorry even in cases of completely false allegations, you still have the burden of hiring your own attorney (if you can afford one) to clear your record. Expunging minor offenses like this typically aren't that difficult. You just file a motion and request a hearing.