Few realize it until a criminal conviction happens, but a clean record is a great asset in life. You are not alone if you have a criminal record. Indeed, reform advocates report that as many Americans have criminal records as have a college degree. Criminal records are a big policy issue today because of the impact they have on education, employment, licensing, housing, credit, and other rights and privileges important to personal success. Fortunately, New Jersey has responded to the huge policy concern over the negative impact of a criminal record with expungement reform. You may now have a new opportunity to clean your criminal record, even if that record is a conviction for a hate crime.
What Expungement Means
Before considering whether you can clean your record of a hate crime, consider what expungement really means. Expungement means having a clean record for many important and common purposes, not for all purposes. Expungement clears your record for routine background checks. When a school, employer, licensing board, landlord, mortgage company, or volunteer site checks your criminal history, your criminal history will look clean. You may also tell those interested parties that you have no conviction for the expunged crime. You don't have to rely on ban-the-box legislation in which many states and cities prohibit employers from asking about criminal convictions. You can just check no when asked about convictions.
What Gets Expunged
Expungement means more than simply deleting a conviction record. New Jersey Stat. §2C:52-1(a) provides that expungement means “the extraction, sealing, impounding, or isolation of all records on file within any court, detention or correctional facility, law enforcement or criminal justice agency concerning a person's detection, apprehension, arrest, detention, trial or disposition of an offense within the criminal justice system.” That's a lot more than a clerk deleting a simple conviction record. New Jersey Stat. §2C:52-1(b) further provides for the sealing of “complaints, warrants, arrests, commitments, processing records, fingerprints, photographs, index cards, ‘rap sheets,' and judicial docket records.” Everything related to the charge ordinarily gets sealed. The criminal records don't disappear, but their extraction and sealing mean they don't show up on a search for criminal background.
Who Still Gets to See the Record
Law enforcement agencies and judicial officers can still access sealed criminal records. Preserving that access is necessary because the expungement statute New Jersey Stat. §2C:52-2 has complex rules for how many convictions a defendant may expunge. Someone has to be able to check whether the defendant who seeks expungement has already had prior convictions expunged. New Jersey Stat. 2C:52-27 also requires you to disclose the expunged conviction if you apply for a diversion program for which you would not qualify if the prior record were disclosed or if you apply for employment with the courts, law enforcement, or corrections. Retain New Jersey criminal defense attorney Joseph D. Lento to review your matter if you have any questions over what you must disclose.
What Is Hate Crime
The most common New Jersey hate crime goes by the title bias intimidation. New Jersey Stat. §2C:16-1 defines bias intimidation as committing another New Jersey crime against a person, like assault or harassment, intending to intimidate “because of race, color, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, or ethnicity….” Bias intimidation can carry severe penalties, depending on the underlying crime. New Jersey Stat. §2C:16-1(c) generally raises the penalty for the underlying crime by one degree. Thus, if the underlying crime is a second-degree offense, the bias intimidation conviction raises the penalties to those associated with a first-degree offense.
Expunging Records of Hate Crime
The expungement statute New Jersey Stat. §2C:52-2 has a long list of crimes that a defendant cannot expunge. That long list does not include a New Jersey hate crime. The list of crimes that one cannot expunge instead includes very serious crimes like murder, manslaughter, treason, anarchy, kidnapping, rape, forcible sodomy, arson, perjury, false swearing, and robbery, among many other serious crimes. Depending on the underlying crime that supported the hate crime conviction, a defendant may well be able to expunge records related to a New Jersey hate crime like bias intimidation. The recent reforms to New Jersey expungement laws can help greatly in expunging hate crime records because the reforms allowed for the expungement of multiple related convictions.
When Expungement Is Unavailable for a Hate Crime
The defendant who commits an especially serious hate crime will not be able to expunge the conviction records. Recall the long list in New Jersey Stat. §2C:52-2 of especially serious crimes that a defendant cannot expunge, including murder, manslaughter, treason, anarchy, kidnapping, rape, forcible sodomy, arson, perjury, false swearing, and robbery, among many others. A conviction for a hate crime like bias intimidation requires that the defendant has committed an underlying crime. If the underlying crime is a petty offense or simple assault, then expungement of the related hate crime would generally be possible. But if the underlying crime was a kidnapping, robbery, or other non-expungement crime, then the related hate crime would remain on the defendant's record.
Retain a New Jersey Expungement Attorney
New Jersey's expungement laws are incredibly complex. The expungement statutes have so many conditions and exceptions that you should not attempt to decide whether you can qualify for expungement without first consulting skilled and experienced counsel. New Jersey criminal defense attorney Joseph D. Lento and the Lento Law Firm is available to review your New Jersey criminal record and to represent you in any expungement matter for which you qualify. Retain qualified, committed, and skilled attorney representation. Your clean record is worth it. Contact the Lento Law Firm at 888.535.3686 or online to to speak with attorney Joseph D. Lento.
