Here’s the situation:
RMV has record of arrest for OUI and chemical refusal based on stop found to be illegal (no probable cause). I want to erase record of arrest and refusal from RMV records. Criminal case already dismissed with prejudice.
The case was heard in District Court and was dismissed with prejudice. The time for the prosecution to appeal the dismissal has lapsed.The officer stopped me at approximately 2:00 am in the parking lot of a hotel that had been destroyed approximately a year earlier. However, there were no barriers, such as chains, cement blocks, cones, or bollards physically preventing entry, and “no trespassing” signs were, by the officer’s own admission, inconspicuous and not visible in nighttime, and I hadn’t driven beyond any of the “no trespassing” signs anyhow. A person not familiar with the area and following directions from a GPS device would have no prior knowledge that the hotel was abandoned; hotels are inherently places that are visited by people local to the area.In an attempt to sustain a “community caretaking” justification for the stop the officer stated in his report that there had been recent thefts of materials from area buildings. However, when pressed the police could not produce any such reports of actual material thefts. His statement about such recent theft incidents was a lie. Furthermore, that I was driving a late model passenger sedan, a 2008 Volvo, was inconsistent with the type of vehicle commonly used in the theft of copper from buildings. (The officer states in his report he saw a 2002 Audi A4, which is wrong. He thought he was supposed to see a 2002 Audi A4 based on the registration I handed him so that’s what he wrote in the report that he “saw,” but the slip from the tow company correctly indicates the type of vehicle that was actually present.)
As you see, the judge found the officer had no probable cause to initiate the stop. The stop was found to be illegal and the motion was allowed. While the criminal case is concluded I would like to consider whatever further courses of action may be available to
1) seal or expunge record of the arrest and chemical test refusal with the RMV
2) seal or expunge record of the arrest on my CORI
3) pursue redress of the officer’s violation of my civil rights, either in state or federal court, in that he detained and arrested me with no probable cause to do so, forcing me to spend money on attorney’s fees and other court expenses, to miss work, and other obvious consequences of a prosecution initiated without probable cause.
4) if the officer’s report is supposed to be under oath, initiate a perjury prosecution against the officer in that he falsely claimed incidents (the thefts of materials from area buildings) that did not occur in an attempt to justify probable cause for a stop where he knew it didn’t exist.
2) seal or expunge record of the arrest on my CORI
3) pursue redress of the officer’s violation of my civil rights, either in state or federal court, in that he detained and arrested me with no probable cause to do so, forcing me to spend money on attorney’s fees and other court expenses, to miss work, and other obvious consequences of a prosecution initiated without probable cause.
4) if the officer’s report is supposed to be under oath, initiate a perjury prosecution against the officer in that he falsely claimed incidents (the thefts of materials from area buildings) that did not occur in an attempt to justify probable cause for a stop where he knew it didn’t exist.
Furthermore, with regard to the RMV, at the original hearing regarding the officer’s claim of refusal (which I dispute), the police withheld exculpatory evidence, namely a report showing that I passed the horizontal gaze nystagmus (HGN). For the appeal of the RMV decision in district court it emerged that the RMV failed to forward some of the evidence from the original hearing, namely some photographs of the location at which the arrest took place and the accompanying comments I wrote on the back of those photographs. This is relevant because the judge at this appeal hearing was very strict that the evidence had to be the same. That means that the evidence can’t be expanded but it can’t be reduced either.
Answer: There’s no way to expunge the Registry records. While you may be able to seal the CORI, you cannot seal your RMV record.