Case Result: State College Resisting Arrest Expungement Case

Expungement of Summary Convictions

Client was a Penn State grad that had pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense of Resisting Arrest and summary offenses of Underage Drinking, Public Drunkenness, and Harassment.  Client wanted to clean up his record to improve his mareketability when job searching, so he filed an expungement petition under 18 Pa.C.S. 9122 to expunge the summary convictions.  The Centre County District Attorney’s Office lodged an objection to the expungement petition, and the judge denied the request.

Client then retained experienced State College expungement lawyer Jason S. Dunkle for help.  Attorney Dunkle filed a motion for a hearing before a Centre County judge to fight for the expungement.  The district attorney argued that expunging the summary offenses but leaving the misdemeanor was too onerous for the court system, so the court should just deny the request.  Attorney Dunkle countered and emphasized that the expungement law for Underage Drinking was not discretionary, meaning that if the client was eligible, which he was, then he was entitled to have the expungement granted.  The expungement law did not include any exceptions, so the district attorney’s argument that the expungement was too difficult was rejected by the law.  Attorney Dunkle further argued that if the court system was required to expunge the Underage Drinking charge, it would not be too difficult to expunge the remaining two summary offenses.  The agreed with Attorney Dunkle.  The expungement request was GRANTED.