Florida Misdemeanor Records

We know that the misdemeanors are less serious crimes than the felonies. Naturally, the penalties for the misdemeanor crimes are also lesser than the felony crimes. As per Florida misdemeanor law, the highest limit of punishment for a misdemeanor is a monetary fine and/or one year imprisonment. If someone has been penalized to serve a term of one or more than one year in prison or in jail, then the crime is categorized as felony.

Categories of Florida Misdemeanors

Florida misdemeanor can be categorized into two classes- first degree and second degree misdemeanors. First degree misdemeanor is serious one of the both the kinds. Punishment for this category is jail of one year along with a fine of $1000. For second degree misdemeanor, the convict is sentenced for two months or 60 days term in jail and a fine of $500. Some of the very common Florida misdemeanor are boating while intoxicated or under the influence of drugs or intoxication, domestic violence, assault with spouse, drunk driving, possession of Marijuana less than 20 gms, trespassing, vandalism, reckless driving, petty theft etc.

If you have been charged with a Florida misdemeanor, you can plead guilty, not guilty or you can choose not to contest. If you plea for not guilty, there will be trial hold by a jury or a judge and if you opt for guilty or don’t contest the charge, there will be no trial. If you think if you will plea for guilty or you would not contest the charge, your attorney would recommend you for plea bargain. Here, the state attorney or the prosecutor will negotiate with the judge on a particular punishment but only after talking to you. You will have the option to bargain on that.

If you are found guilty after the trial of all three pleas, there are two potential outcomes depending upon the judicial options. The judge can enter an adjudication of conviction against you or can withhold it. The first option leads to permanent criminal record while in case of withheld adjudication, the record can be sealed or expunged. This is applicable for the cases of Florida misdemeanor as well as certain felony. Though the maximum sentence for misdemeanor offenses is one year jail, yet some probation period can be added to that which is exclusive of the main sentence. The probation may include special conditions like counseling and community services. Counseling is added especially if the case is related to abuse, violence or anger.

The criminal record of misdemeanor can be expunged only when there has been no conviction, the defendant had pled guilty or has no previous record of expungement. In order to have the record sealed or expunged in Florida, it is necessary to get a Certificate of Eligibility issued by Florida Department of Law Enforcement. When you get hold of the certificate, only then you can petition for the sealing or expungement of records. You need to pay $75 as the charge of this certificate. Once a record is sealed, it will be unavailable to certain law entities like Florida Bar, State Board of Education, State Department of Children and Families and few more. An expunged record cannot be viewed by any private or public agency.

Florida Misdemeanor Records

There are many governmental and commercial sources of Florida misdemeanor records. The commercial websites extract the information from reliable agencies. Yet it is recommended to go for the government sources only. This way, you will always be sure of the authenticity of the information. One such source is PACER or Public Access to Courtroom Electronic Records. This database has been created seeing the increasing demand of records by general public. With PACER, you can access the records from any court while sitting at home with a computer and high speed Internet. You can reach PACER on http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/links.pl. To access the public records, you will need to register. Upon registration, a login identity and a password will be provided which you will require to enter the domain.

You can also get Florida misdemeanor records from the sheriff’s office of the respective county. Every County Office maintains a database of records of the cases that are taking place within the limits of that particular county. If you don’t have the contact information to reach the sheriff of the specific county, then you can visit the link http://www.flsheriffs.org/index.cfm/referer/content.contentList/ID/320/. This website will provide you with the official websites and mailing address of all 67 counties and their sheriffs. You can also mail your query to Florida Sheriffs Association, P.O. Box 12519, Tallahassee, FL 32317 or you can call them at 850-877-2165. Many of the county websites have specific section for misdemeanor cases. This makes your search easier.

https://www2.fdle.state.fl.us/cchinet/ gives you access to the criminal history records of an individual. On providing with certain information, a list would be displayed and you will have to determine whether any of the entries present in the list matches with your candidate. Result displayed would largely depend upon the information provided by you. Also, your search will not return any fruitful result if the record has been sealed or expunged in Florida. Fee for this service is $24 per name searched, no matter what result you get. You will need to provide your credit card information while registration with the site.

The search records you will obtain here are not the certified documents. For certified copies, you need to mail at Florida Department of Law Enforcement citing that the results are needed to be certified. You can download the form from https://www2.fdle.state.fl.us/cchinet/_docs/CrimHistInfoRequest.pdf and mail it to Florida Department of Law Enforcement, User Services Bureau, Criminal History Services, PO Box 1489, Tallahassee FL 32302. Along with the filled up form, you need to send a self-addressed envelope, some details of the individual you are looking for, like aliases, age, sex, ethnicity, SSN if known and the last residential address. You can enclose a check or money order of $24 along with this mail. The entire procedure takes five business days excluding the time taken by postal department. For any unanswered query, you can call up the service section of FDLE at 850-410-8109. Falsification or misrepresentation of the certified documents is a punishable offense under felony class.