DALE CARSON LAW

In Florida, you can unseal sealed records, but doing so in court is not always easy. One has to make a petition with solid evidence showing great and valid reason for accessing the sealed records. Also, reasons for breaking the seal normally entail that the information is needed for new legal proceedings or adequate public safety reasons that justify the disclosure of the otherwise sealed information.

Then, the court examines the petition after filing to ascertain if the reasons for unsealing outweigh the privacy rights it gave when the records were sealed. The court considers aspects such as the impact on the individual’s privacy, the relevance and the age of the records, and the implications to the wider society of such information going public. Additionally, the judge may grant an order to unseal the records if they are convinced by the petitioner’s arguments. However, it normally leads to further hearings where both sides can argue their case. The process is so complicated and the standards so high that a person wishing to unseal records is encouraged to seek legal advice to move as effortlessly as possible through the barriers to the courts.