Expungement is the legal process that allows a petitioner to get a court order to effectively delete their records, or portions of their records, for the purpose of a background check, or any general search or any other use by the agency. Once a court orders a record expunged, the incidents covered by those records are treated as though they never occurred.
Expungement proceedings may be specific to one investigation, multiple investigations, a specific time period in a case, or an entire case. Court ordered expungements will make specific references to the material being expunged to guide the agency's actions in executing an expungement.
If a petitioner requests that DCBS records be included as part of a petition for expungement, the court will set a hearing on the request and provide notice to the associated agencies. It is important that DCBS communicate a timely decision between the local office and Office of Legal Services (OLS) if the agency plans to oppose the petition or not. If the court ultimately orders an expungement, the department has thirty (30) days to appeal an expungement. It is important the local office and OLS communicate about any petitions for expungement or expungement orders issued by the court, since the orders may not be distributed consistently across jurisdictions, and since the timely dispute of an expungement order has real consequences for the agency to ensure that alleged perpetrators are correctly listed on the central registry.
DCBS should not proceed with an expungement unless the agency is specifically named by the expungement unless the agency is specifically named by the expungement order, and only after the period for an appeal has expired. Expungement orders are typically issued on the AOC 497 form or the AOC JV 29 form.