Criminal history records ineligible for court-ordered expunction or court-ordered sealing

Plain-language summary

This statute is one gate a record must pass. It lists the offenses that make a record ineligible for court-ordered expungement or sealing. Before you read the list, know how it defines a conviction: a finding of guilt at trial, or a guilty or no-contest plea — even when adjudication was withheld — and, for a minor, the same finding or plea in a delinquency case. The plea alone can close the door.

The list is long. It runs from violent offenses — murder, manslaughter or homicide, aggravated assault, felony battery, domestic battery by strangulation, aggravated battery, assault or battery of a family or household member by another, robbery or robbery by sudden snatching, carjacking, home-invasion robbery, kidnapping or false imprisonment — to offenses against children, the elderly, and disabled persons. It covers a wide range of sexual offenses, voyeurism, certain acts in connection with obscenity, stalking, human trafficking, arson, burglary of a dwelling, illegal use of explosives, aircraft piracy, drug trafficking and manufacturing, communications fraud, any offense defined in chapter 839, and terrorism. It also covers any offense listed as a predicate for registration as a sexual predator or sexual offender, even when that offense alone would not require registration.

The rule reaches both remedies. A conviction for a listed offense makes that record ineligible for a certificate of eligibility or a court order, for expungement under section 943.0585 and for sealing under section 943.059 alike. It also reaches a minor's case for a listed act: a finding that the minor committed it, or a guilty or no-contest plea to it, counts even when adjudication of delinquency was withheld.

One boundary is worth stating plainly. The list disqualifies convictions, in the statute's broad sense of that word. A listed charge that was dropped or dismissed — never a plea, never a finding of guilt — does not by itself make your record ineligible. Whether the rest of your history qualifies is what FDLE's certificate process determines; the eligibility check can give you an early read.