When you have a conviction set aside, your civil rights restored, a record expunged, or charges dismissed, it's a good idea to spread the good news.  Most people do not realize that criminal records are kept by dozens of agencies, and they don't always talk to each other when their records change.

For example, if you are charged with a DUI and booked into jail for the night, a record of this incident will be created in at least three different agencies, and likely several others too.  The department employing the police officer who wrote the ticket will create a record of the stop, arrest, and citation.  The jail will create a booking record.  The court will create a criminal (or traffic, depending on the court) case record.  The local prosecutor's office will open a case file.  The police department likely will report its record to the state Department of Public Safety, or whatever agency maintains the state-wide criminal history database, which will create a criminal history record.  The state agency may report its record to the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which maintains a national criminal history database.  That makes for a lot of records.


Unfortunately, while these agencies will often do a good job of letting all their friends know that you've been arrested or charged, they just as often to a terrible job of passing the word that your case has been dismissed, or that your conviction was set aside.  That means that you are the one who must take charge of keeping your criminal record up-to-date.  Whenever a positive change is made to your criminal record, inform every agency that might know of the original charge.  Try to check your criminal history every once in a while to see what's there, and insist on corrections to bad information.  With so many records kept in electronic databases, and with more and more information available to the public online, it is critically important to make sure that your record is accurate.

If you are unfortunate enough to have a criminal conviction in Arizona, you should seek to set that conviction aside as soon as you possibly can.  While this will not "expunge" the conviction from your record (which will, thanks to computer storage capacity, exist practically forever), setting aside the conviction will improve your record.

Setting aside a conviction results in the charges being "dismissed," which indicates that the judge has reviewed your case and determined that setting aside the conviction is appropriate.  Please note that this is not necessarily the same thing as restoring your civil liberties, which often requires a separate application -- though by its terms, a set-aside results in the person being "released from all penalties and disabilities resulting from the conviction," with a few exceptions.  Still, it is the better practice to apply for both.  (Doing so will be the subject of a future post.)

If the judge grants your application, this does not mean that the conviction disappears.  As noted above, the case record can still appear if someone searches for it, and some court records show up on Google searches.  Thus, if you apply for a job after having a conviction set aside, and the application asks if you have ever been convicted of a criminal offense, the best answer is something like, "Yes, BUT the conviction was set aside."  DO NOT claim that you have not ever been convicted -- such dishonesty will likely cost you the job, and if you are applying for a government job, may result in further prosecution.

The statute governing set-asides in Arizona is A.R.S. section 13-907.