What is the motion for factual innocence? Most people ask us to file this motion for them because they want a clean criminal record, especially when it comes to future job applications, requests for financial aid and monetary loans, apartment applications, school, or university applications, or even if a romantic partner or potential investor might want to do a background. Check on you. Having an arrest may be harmful when trying to protect your reputation. Emotion for factual innocence is available to you. If you've been arrested, detained, or charged with a crime, and there was no actual conviction. In other words, you are factually innocent and you want the court to recognize that with an official document, most people that want to file this motion either fall in a couple of different categories. For example, they were arrested, charged for a crime and they actually won their case in court, or they were arrested, but charges were never formally filed by the district attorney's office because there was insufficient evidence to prove a crime was committed or somebody was detained by the police investigated, but never formally arrested in either of these cases, filing this kind of a motion with the court to prove actual innocence involves filing paperwork that an attorney can put together for you and having an actual court hearing in the paperwork.
Your attorney might include witness testimony taken by a private investigator or having a witness fill out a declaration under penalty of perjury. Your emotion could also include other evidence to show your innocence, including any surveillance, videos, photos, or audio recordings. We could also subpoena your cell phone records, receipts, or anything to prove that you were innocent. After filing this paperwork with the court, we must then serve the district attorney's office and possibly the law enforcement agency that may be arrested detention. Once all parties are served. The next step is to have an actual court hearing at this court hearing the judge will decide whether the arrest or investigation holds any merit and whether the motion should be granted. If granted and you're found factually innocent, the law enforcement agency and the department of justice who holds all us criminal records will then seal any record of your case.
This includes your booking photo, also known as a mugshot, the police report and court records. There are also some timely considerations. This motion must be filed within two years from the date of the incident and the turnaround time for everything is roughly three months. So if you're thinking of filing this motion to clean up your record, please give yourself three months in advance before applying to a new job school or trying to get a home. You may also want to give yourself some extra time to interview with attorneys to represent you in court and together financial resources to hire an attorney. And you're doing the right thing by watching this video, because it means that you're educating yourself on the process. So find out if you, or your loved one qualifies for this motion. Our office is here to help feel free, to reach out for an evaluation of your case. And thanks for listening.