Court-ordered sealing of criminal history records

Plain-language summary

This is Florida's court-ordered sealing statute. Sealing makes your record confidential; it is not destroyed. Courts and criminal justice agencies keep access, but the public loses it. With specific exceptions, you may lawfully deny the record exists.

The process mirrors expungement's. First, FDLE must issue a certificate of eligibility. The application takes a certified disposition of your case, a fingerprint card, and a $75 processing fee paid to FDLE. Certificate in hand, you petition the court in the county where your case was handled. The judge may grant or deny it.

Sealing's test is broader than expungement's in one key way: it covers a case where adjudication was withheld. You were not convicted, but the case did not end in a dismissal either. That middle ground is what sealing exists for. The disqualifying-offense list in section 943.0584 still applies. You must be past supervision, and the one-record, one-proceeding rule holds here too.

The exceptions to lawful denial are specific, and worth knowing. Certain job and license applications keep their right to the truth — work with children, the elderly, or disabled persons, and criminal justice jobs among them. And after 10 years sealed, a record may qualify for court-ordered expungement under section 943.0585.