I got a “Nolle prosequi” a year ago in Connecticut and I went to court to ask for a disposal and they said my case has been dismissed and disposed of since a month ago. I am filling out a college application and I encounter this question: "Have you entered a plea of guilty, a plea of no contest, a plea of nolo contendere, an Alford plea to a criminal charge, or a plea under a first offender act? ". The person in charge of the office told me It should not show on my background check and only with a court order it would be able to be seen and I am positively sure that there are no online records of this incident.
My questions are:
Do I still need to respond Yes? Will this school be able to see that there is a nolle prosequi even though the officer told me that? I am afraid of them finding out somehow and saying I lied but this is an elite school and I am afraid that if I answer “Yes” they will not accept me. I have worked just extremely hard to get there and I have a GPA of 4.0 and because of something that I didn’t even do(because I am really not guilty) my future at this university may be compromised. Please help.
2)If my case was disposed of and dismissed 2 months ago, what does this mean? Is it sealed? How can I expunge it?
3)If I answer yes, how will this affect my acceptance?
Thanks everyone.
I would talk to a lawyer
But did you enter a plea?
if you entered no plea then you entered no plea.
But if the question was have you ever been arrested, then that is a different question that you might have to answer yes to.
If you came here hoping someone would tell you it’s okay to lie, you’re in the wrong forum…The question is about whether you entered a plea (other than not guilty), and the ultimate handling of the case via a nolle prosequi is irrelevant… Answer honestly. If you never submitted a plea other than “not guilty”, you have nothing to say. (If you’re “really not guilty”, you pled “not guilty”, right?) If you did plead otherwise, disclose it and reference the nolle prosequi,.along with its date, e.g., “Case dismissed on ____ via nolle prosequi.”
Ethics aside, and looking toward similar inquiries that may come up on your future job or internship or grad school applications, I’d never feel comfortable that some remnant of data regarding a criminal charge didn’t remain searchable somewhere online, despite the court’s good faith efforts to seal or expunge the case. You can run a criminal check on yourself to see what comes up, but was the incident in question ever reported in a newspaper, did anyone blab about it in social media? There are so many possibilities. If you answer this kind of question honestly, the facts will never come back to bite you in the butt.