Originally Posted by
ctd57
I had a misdemeanor on my record. It was the lowest form in the state in which it occured in 1997(is was 18) At the time of the hearing, the judge told me to not get into any trouble for a year since I was a first time offender, and come back to court to file for an expungement. I did, and I asked the judge what I should say to a potential employer if they asked to question if I had ever been arrested or convicted of a misdemeanor since I wanted join the military after college. His answer to that was say NO. Since it was expunged, he said it was no longer on my record, I applied to the Navy as an officer, told them I had never been arrested, and nothing ever came of it. So based on that, I would have to agree that if your misdemeanor is expunged, it is no longer on any record, and I think that the Navy does a more thorough background check than any airline, due to the fact that you have to potential to know about classified and top secret info.
Not true. The background check to JOIN the military is pretty light. In order to do many of the cool/significant jobs you need a secret or higher clearance...in order to get one of those there is a long investigation process (often over a year) during which they will find out about everything, expunged or otherwise. If you are determined to be ineligible for the clearance needed to do your job, you will be assigned a new job (scraping paint or counting rolls of TP).
The theory behind expunged records is nice, but the actual implementation is not consistent. If you have a past issue and deal with it up front, you know you will not be fired later. If you gloss something over and do get yanked out of groundschool, printing out the legal quotes from this forum is not likely to help you. Ultimately it is up to you as to how to handle thi sort of thing.
Part of the problem is different laws and processes in different states. You may live in state A, be based in state B, but have to deal with a company headquartered in state C (often chosen for it's lax business laws). The company will usually try to apply the rules of the state in which it is based.
Honestly, a lawyer (licensed in state C) could give you the best advice about this kind of situation.