C-Lo Green Wrote:
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> Geez man you just shot my dreams down of an
> expungment. I appreciate the explaination...are
> you a laywer? Are you telling me that the only way
> of getting my charges expunged is through a
> laywer? It seems difficult and tricky. I have to
> read you citations of the law to better understand
> it. My ORIGINAL question was "how do i refile or
> reopen an expungement case?" I'm guessing the term
> is appeal the denied decision?
The complicating factor in your case is the fact that you have other criminal convictions unrelated to the four misdemeanors. If you didn't have those, you probably could have filed the petition yourself (it's even available as a fill-in-the-blanks PDF on the internet at
http://www.courts.state.va.us/forms/circuit/cc1473.pdf, with instructions at
http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/courts/circuit/pdf/CCR-A-35.PDF) and gotten your expungement without paying a lawyer.
You can do things like this yourself: it's called representing yourself
pro se, but you should generally only do it in the simplest of cases.
Because of your complicating factor, hiring a lawyer was a good decision, but I don't understand why she took the case in the first place since there seems to be such a high probability that your petition would be rejected. She must have a good reason for why she thought she could win, which she should have articulated in your original petition. (Unless you forgot to tell her about your other convictions, which she should have asked about, regardless.)
Otherwise, she was pretty much acting as a (very expensive) secretary (or at best a paralegal) and filling in the blanks in the forms I mentioned above.
You can move forward on your own if you want to, but most judges are extremely disinclined to look favorably on pro se litigants, meaning you will get no help from them. You need to know the rules of court, and you'll have to spend a lot of time in the law library (the one at the Fairfax court house is free and open to the public) reading case law* to see how the law has been applied in the past. You're also going to have to learn how to understand legal citation, which is a real bit of a brain twister.
Additionally, the judge's decision should include a reason why your petition was denied, and this would be where your research would be useful, to show the judge's error in applying the law.
My advice would be to find another attorney and consult with him (or her) as to what your chances are of obtaining an expungement before you fork over another cent. Tell them your facts (4 misdemeanors, 1 not guilty, 1 dismissed, 2 nolle prossed, but prior criminal convictions, original petition denied in Circuit Court). They may know some vaguery of the law your original attorney didn't, or they may tell you you have no chance and save your cash.
Also, even if they do find grounds to appeal, the truth is that because of the time they're going to have to take to research, prepare, and present your case will be very involved, and therefore very expensive, and this may in and of itself dissuade you from moving forward.
*Start at Brown v. Commonwealth, 278 Va. 92, 677 S.E.2d 220 (2009) This decision discusses whether or not the plantiffs had the right to seek an expungement under the law, specifically the "otherwise dismissed" wording in § 19.2-392.2.A(2), but does have some discussion of the meaning of "manifest injustice" in § 19.2-392.2.F.
Disclaimer: This post does not constitute legal advice.