Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Brad Smith answers the question:”What is an expungement?”
A criminal conviction can cause a great deal of strife in your life. As a convicted individual, you may have trouble getting employment, attending school, and renting an apartment. In addition, it could make your relationships difficult. Many people wonder whether they can get their record erased or expunged. Expungement is an option in some circumstances in North Carolina.
Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Brad Smith answers the question: “If I have an outstanding warrant, what should I do?”
A woman named Julie Cantu recently experienced one of the (many) negative aspects of today’s information age. While out on a first date, the man asked her several normal get-to-know-you questions, but then included an odd one about whether she had experienced any brushes with the law. Julie was perplexed about the question and when she got home Googled herself. She was horrified to discover that there, after her LinkedIn photo, was another, much less flattering one: her mugshot from years before when she was arrested for drunk driving.
Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Brad Smith answers the question: “If I am charged by campus police could I still face jail time or probation?”
The “Ban the Box” movement appears to be picking up steam across the country as more and more states pass measures aimed at removing a hurdle that often discourages those with criminal records from even trying to find work. President Obama has now waded into the issue, moving on the federal level to end the practice of pre-screening for previous criminal infractions. Advocates of “Ban the Box” measures are celebrating the victory, though believe much work remains to be done before those with criminal records truly have a fair shot at finding gainful employment.
Charlotte Criminal Lawyer Brad Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC answers the question: A past conviction is keeping me from finding work what can I do?
We’ve previously discussed the harms that can occur when children are charged with adult crimes and made to serve out punishment in adult prisons. Such heavy-handed tactics can prove counterproductive, creating young people who are far more likely to reoffend and live the life of a criminal rather than that of a productive member of society.
J. Bradley Smith of Arnold & Smith, PLLC responds to “The person that called the police doesn’t want to press charges, can I still be prosecuted?”
The political world has been aflutter with outrage at Hillary Rodham Clinton’s use of a personal email account while employed as the Secretary of the United States Government’s Department of State.
In a press conference last week, Clinton said she decided which emails were a part of the public record and which emails were private. The latter, she suggested, had been deleted.
Now an American state—Massachusetts—is giving police officers the same power, only not over email. According to the Boston Globe, the Massachusetts Secretary of State has refused the newspaper’s request for “the names of five police officers caught drunken driving,” for a “report on an officer who was arrested,” for “booking photos of a state trooper,” and for an “entire log of people incarcerated in the state prison system.”
It seems—both at the state and federal levels—secrecy is all the rage.
In Massachusetts, that state’s supervisor of public records told the Globe that public departments have “the discretion to withhold records determined to be covered by CORI.” CORI stands for “Criminal Offender Record Information. The Massachusetts Secretary of State contends that law-enforcement officials have sweeping powers to decide what criminal records are made public, according to the Globe.