What Happens After Your Record is Ordered Expunged Or Sealed?

You've made it to the end of the process and the judge issues an Order for Your Expungement, what happens now?

When the Judge orders your record to be Expunged or Sealed, The Clerk of Court, Law Enforcement Agencies, the State Attorney's Office and the F.D.L.E. must take action to complete the process.

The Clerk of Court must remove all access to your record.

Your record will no longer be available for search on the Clerk’s website and it will not be available at the Clerk’s office upon request. Also, the Clerk of Court will no longer sell your information to private parties.

The arresting agency and the County’s Sheriff must remove all access to your files.

Once law enforcement ends and investigation the case becomes a public record. An Expungement Order requires the agency to physically destroy the record of your arrest. A Sealing Order requires them to make all records confidential.

The State Attorney’s Office must also destroy their records (expungement) or make them confidential (sealing).

Once a case is closed that case becomes public record and can be accessed by anyone from the State Attorney’s Office. By expunging or sealing your case these records become non-public records and prevents them from being disclosed.

The F.D.L.E. maintains a repository of every Florida Arrest in its database.

These records can be accessed easily from their website for a small fee. Once your record has been sealed or expunged the F.D.L.E. will remove access to these records from their site and stop selling that information to private companies.