How court ordered expungements can fail when employers use private screening companies to do background checks of your client.

What happens when a Common Pleas Judge signs an Expungement Order after a client successfully completes ARD?

The Clerk of Courts distributes the Order to each agency on the distribution list accompanying the Order. At a minimum, these agencies include: the arresting police department, the District Court who handled the Preliminary Hearing, and the Pennsylvania State Police Central Repository in Harrisburg.

How do private screening companies get their information?

Information may be obtained by:

1. Logging onto the public website for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts (AOPC); or
2. Paying a fee directly to AOPC for confirmation of any records related to your client.

What happens when the employee background check is done before the Expungement Order is processed?

Once a third party mines information from the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, Pennsylvania law does not prohibit that agency from keeping the mined data in their own database for future use.

Is the screening company automatically notified once the Court Order is processed by the AOPC?

No. According to an AOPC representative, updated information is not provided to a private screening company unless that company makes another request for information and pays the appropriate fees.

Blog Written by David Hershey