Waukesha Lawyers Help with Appeals and Expungements

When a trial is over and you’ve been convicted of a crime, it can be easy to despair and think that your future is bleak—but all is not lost. Hiring skilled Waukesha lawyers like those from the firm of Huppertz & Powers, S.C. can help you appeal your case to overturn your conviction.

Though filing an appeal may sound simple, it can be quite complicated. You can only file an appeal if there was a legal error that skewed the trial’s result against you. For criminal cases, an appeal means requesting a higher court to examine the trial records to determine if the legal error affected how the case was decided or how you were sentenced and if it did so, the case should be dismissed or re-trial and re-sentencing must be done. The records to be examined will include the trial transcripts and any documents that were presented as evidence during the trial.

If you desire to make an appeal, you’ll need to have your lawyer file it within 30 days (if the decision was at state level) or 60 days (if it was on the federal level). This should be enough for your legal team to find any basis for an appeal and make a case for it. Only serious errors can be considered for an appeal. For example, a judge let evidence that was obtained without a search warrant be displayed; this was a serious error since these pieces of evidence should not legally be admissible in court. Once your appeal has been filed, the higher court will review the case and make a decision; this can range from confirming your original sentence to having your case thrown out completely.

Whether you manage to get your conviction overturned or not, you’ll still need a knowledgeable Waukesha lawyer to help you with getting an expungement. You’ll need one to seal the record of your conviction, ensuring that you can legally say that you have no such conviction on your record; this would be a definite plus for jobseekers since most employers do background checks nowadays. An expungement is a lot different from a pardon; with an expungement you can treat a crime as if it had not occurred, while a pardon still requires you to mention it on your record.

To qualify for an expungement, you’ll need to meet the terms of eligibility. First, the offense is eligible for expungement in the state. Second, you need to be eligible for expungement which means you have met requirements like serving jail time or probation for the offense. If you do meet the terms then you can try and get an expungement with the help of your trusted attorney.

(Source: Differences Between Expungements and Pardons, LegalFlip.com)