In some common law jurisdictions, an expungement or expunction is a legal process, usually defined by statute, through which a person may petition to have records relating to a prior criminal matter, such as an arrest or conviction, destroyed or sealed so that they are not accessible to the general public. The precise legal effect of expungement varies by jurisdiction. Black’s Law Dictionary defines "expungement of record" as the "process by which a record of criminal conviction is destroyed or sealed from the state or federal repository."
In some common law jurisdictions, an expungement or expunction is a legal process, usually defined by statute, through which a person may petition to have records relating to a prior criminal matter, such as an arrest or conviction, destroyed or sealed so that they are not accessible to the general public. The precise legal effect of expungement varies by jurisdiction. Black’s Law Dictionary defines "expungement of record" as the "process by which a record of criminal conviction is destroyed or sealed from the state or federal repository."
The function of an expungement is significantly different from that of a pardon. When an expungement is granted, in many jurisdictions, for most purposes the person whose record is expunged may treat the event as if it never occurred. A pardon (also called "executive clemency") does not "erase" the event; rather, it constitutes forgiveness. In the United States, an expungement can be granted only by a judge, while a pardon can be granted only by the President of the United States for federal offenses, and the state governor, certain other state executive officers, or the State Board of Pardons and Paroles (varies from state to state) for state offenses.
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).