A big chunk of the cost for having your case expunged in Utah is the fee that the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification charges to give you a certificate of eligibility and the fee that the Court charges to file your petition. These amount to over $200 for each case. …
There’s been a theme lately of the Utah legislature making improvements to the laws on expungements and record reductions. (See Utah’s Clean Slate Law, and Utah Makes Drug Offenses Easier to Expunge). Good on them, I say. Another small change to the language of the “402 Reduction” statute this spring …
In 2019, Utah became the second state in the country to pass an “automatic” expungement law. It went into effect in 2020, but as of the date of this post (in Summer of 2021) no cases have been automatically expunged yet. Recently, I volunteered as an “expert expungement attorney” for …
Over the last couple years, Utah has made some major changes in it’s expungement eligibility guidelines–almost all of them for the good. The most important change has made it easier for people with several drug possession offenses to get them expunged, but the changes also make it easier for people …
So there’s finally some good news out there for those people trying to deal with a long-ago mug-shot plaguing their current, law-abiding life–people who expunged their criminal records, or were arrested for a crime but never convicted of it, or who just grew up and moved on and tried to …
I’ve been contacted by several people lately who were confused about the difference between “dismissed” charges and “expunged” charges. What they don’t understand is that the record of your criminal case–whether you were convicted, found not-guilty, or the case was dismissed–is always part of the public record unless it is …
It’s certainly possible to do your own expungement in Utah. It just takes some patience, filling out several forms, and jumping through a bunch of legal hoops. You’ll also have to write why expunging your record is not contrary to the public interest (see my blog post on the subject …
“Contrary to the Public Interest” sounds like a good name for a punk band. It’s also a key phrase of legal jargon in Utah’s Expungement Petition forms, and it stops many hopeful expungers in their tracks. You’re just cruising along, checking boxes, answering some simple questions, and then, bam: The …
Mug shot web sites have been flourishing here in Utah and everywhere else. Apparently, there is lots of pent-up demand for the valuable public-service they provide. I know I personally wake up every morning wondering who might have been booked into jail in my fair city lately. In fact I …
© 2023 Dain Smoland, Attorney at Law PLLC, a Salt Lake City Criminal Defense Attorney