Police press release defamation

[justalayman]

Wow, reading that presents a very different situation than the one you have presented here. It sounds like you went to the Michael Jackson school of child care. You allowed this minor child PATIENT to sleep in your bed.


and of course nothing the child said was true, right?

 

[Derelictnot]

As I said...

convicted before I walk through the courthouse doors.

 

[divona2000]

Question for the Seniors---since the court has granted & ordered expungement, how might OP be able to use that in an attempt to at least locally clear his reputation of those particular items?


"Under these circumstances, King has shown manifest injustice.Apparently, later investigation led to a determination that the age of the person in the material was not a minor but may be a young adult.
Conclusion
For the reasons indicated herein ***********'s petition for expungement of his various arrest records is GRANTED.
IT IS SO ORDERED"

 

[Derelictnot]

Thank you...

Divona, for the benefit of the doubt. X and I both know what happened and did not, and the criminal justice system left no stone unturned, either. It was a manipulation, pure and simple. It was my fault for putting myself in that position instead of having him arrested. If there were not facts which support what happened, I would not be sitting here. I pray someone answers your question.

 

[quincy]

Well, I can answer the question, but it is not necessarily the answer you are looking for, Derelictnot.

There is no way for knowledge of arrests and criminal charges to be expunged from the collective minds of a community. In addition, and unfortunately, collective minds will often remember the arrests and the criminal charges but not the final dispositions.

The court will maintain records of all of the hearings. Any newspaper coverage of the arrests and charges will be accessible in cached pages on the internet or in newspaper morgues. And chances are pretty good that the records still exist in some background check company's database (to appear in error should you apply for a job). Or records may exist in some form or another on the internet and they will appear with a googling of your name.

Defamation suits are often the only way people have to repair a reputation injured by false accusations and false arrests and false stories, but even a defamation suit can only compensate a person through an award of monetary damages. The reputational injury caused by defamatory words is not undone with a lawsuit, and the reputational injury is not repaired with a lawsuit victory.

In other words, there is no easy way to repair a damaged reputation. A person who has suffered reputational injury often must rely on the passage of time and fading memories. You move on with your life the best you can.

Even when there has been an expungement of your records and there is no longer a public record of arrests or charges, therefore, the fact that there was an arrest and charges does not entirely disappear.

As a suggestion, however: You are certainly not alone in being accused, arrested and charged with a crime you did not commit. The types of crimes you were accused of committing are perhaps among the most common of false accusations made. You may want to consider contacting others who have had to deal with similar false charges, to see how they have handled the aftermath. You may even want to consider compiling these stories into a book.

 

[Derelictnot]

Undeniably..

I have always preferred an ugly truth over a pretty lie.

You are correct about time passing and people (including me) moving on to the next distraction. This town is only about pop. 5,000, so it may be a long time. I still have to make a living at something - maybe teach college?
There is a money factor involved, no doubt. As you correctly point out, an expungement (which is a very high hurdle to jump for a good reason) from the court in these modern times does nothing to erase the internet record - which will far outlive me. My training and years of practice, gone. The last three years of income gone with any chance to ever work in that field again - or any field for that matter. Lawyer fees figure into the picture, too. Yes, I want to be compensated enough to live and I firmly believe that the press release was specifically done to discredit me and improve their image (and possibly taint a jury pool?). Perhaps it is time for the "system" to take into account the new reality that one is more likely to get an internet check than a police or credit check when seeking employment? Those days are never coming back.

When I worked in FL with foster homes, it was a game of musical kids. They knew exactly what to say to work the system and the system knew it and accounted for it by shuffling the kids around until the investigation was complete. THEN, maybe headlines - but never in my experience during the time I worked in that field.

I still plan to ask that an attorney be appointed to advise me. Until that happens, I have a fool for a client. Thank you for the advice to seek out others similarly situated, I will.

You are correct, it was not what I was looking for - but it was what I NEEDED right now. The legalities will work out the way they will. A trip to court is always a roll of the dice. I made it this far on my own, now I need professional advice. As a pauper, I can only ask for one.
Thanks for the "grounding" reality check.