

The California Clean Slate Act implements so-called automatic relief by requiring the California Attorney General to mine the official criminal record repository for arrest and conviction records and identify the records of those eligible for relief under the Act.
CLEAN SLATE DEFINITION HOW TO
Persons with a criminal record are strongly advised to seek a criminal defense lawyer for advice on how to seal arrests and convictions. The Act, which builds upon other recently enacted California consumer protection laws, will reduce, or eliminate the impact a criminal record will have on our clients. The recently enacted Clean Slate Act attempts to give a meaningful outcome to these rehabilitative measures. Importantly, the new laws provide sealing of certain conviction history. However, short of the elusive Governor’s Pardon, these provisions, standing alone, do not go far enough to redress the harm resulting from having a criminal record.Ĭalifornia has recently adopted legislation that goes a long way to insuring certain arrests and criminal convictions will not be disclosed to parties outside of the criminal justice arena.

Criminal history aggregators, consumer reporting agencies, private investigations, and the internet, all contribute to the perpetual harm suffered by our clients for even a single criminal justice event.Ĭalifornia’s criminal justice model does include rehabilitative provisions such as provisions to seal arrest records, prefiling diversion programs, court diversion programs, and expungements. Domenic Lombardo, San Diego Criminal Defense LawyerĪs criminal defense lawyers we are familiar with what are euphemistically known as “collateral consequences.” We know a conviction can harm our clients in myriad unanticipated ways, causing nearly irreversible obstacles to unfettered freedom.
