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Expungement of Record After Dismissal of Complaint OK

By Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries

Yesterday, in Commonwealth v. Boe, the Mass. Appeals Court ruled that a district court judge could expunge a criminal record after a complaint was dismissed, and was not limited to sealing the record under MGL c.276, s.100C. "It is one thing to initiate a prosecution against a person who has a colorable involvement in a crime, but it is unacceptably Kafkaesque to initiate a prosecution where that person is disconnected from the charged crime. To allow Boe's name to be carried forward in court records in these circumstances would, as the judge found, constitute a miscarriage of justice, because sealing "does not render the sealed records inaccessible to law enforcement authorities." ...  "The judge recognized that the sealing remedy of § 100C was neither applicable nor adequate, and properly applied the purging recognized by statute."

Full post as published by Massachusetts Law Updates on February 06, 2009 (boomark / email).