In a major victory for our client, attorneys at Zukerman, Daiker & Lear convinced the Eighth District Court of Appeals to overturn one of its own cases and find that the law required the trial court to conduct an evidentiary hearing on his expungement application.
In 2005, defendant R.A. was convicted of five counts of burglary and sentenced to five years of community control sanctions. Because a felony conviction can have a lasting and dramatic impact on a defendant’s life, R.A. applied to have his convictions expunged after he’d served the sentence. The trial court denied his motion without conducting a hearing as required by R.C. 2953.32(B).
Our firm appealed the trial court ruling to the Eighth District Court of Appeals. We argued that the trial court could not deny R.A.’s motion without conducting an evidentiary hearing. Despite a recent Eighth District case finding that “a hearing is not necessary where the state raises purely an issue of law in opposition to the motion for expungement,” the court took our side, declining to follow its decision in State v. J.K., 8th Dist. No. 96574, 2011-Ohio-5675.
Facing strong opposition and case law that supported the state, our attorneys prevailed, winning our client the opportunity to present evidence at a hearing to seek the expungement of his felony record.
Even a misdemeanor record can impact your employment prospects. If you’d like to get your criminal record expunged, speaking with one of our attorneys is the first step in the process.
State v. R.A., 8th Dist. Nos. 97550-97551, 2012-Ohio-2507.
