Saturday, August 08, 2015

Pro se appellant wins new expungement hearing

Pro se defendant Tinisha Turner won in State v. Turner, No. 112,633 (July 17, 2015)(unpublished), obtaining remand in a Montgomery County expungement case. The district court dismissed her petition for expungement of a no tax stamp conviction after holding that the state had provided some evidence that Ms. Turner had been convicted of more recent offenses and that she had failed to acknowledge those in her petition. The COA held that the state had not presented such evidence, but had only made some indication that there might be such evidence:

Here, Turner's petition alleged facts that, if true, would have authorized the district court to grant expungement, but the district court denied Turner's petition based upon an error of fact. As explained above, the district judge determined it was appropriate to deny Turner's petition because he thought the State presented some evidence that she had recently had more charges filed against her. The State, however, never actually presented such evidence. Instead, the State merely indicated that it believed Turner had a more extensive criminal history than she had disclosed in her petition.

Observing that Ms. Turner had alleged facts that would warrant expungement and, as a result, the COA remanded for a further hearings and evidence.

[Update: the state did not file a PR and the mandate issued on August 20, 2015.]

No comments: