In the
common law legal system, an
expungement proceeding is a type of
lawsuit in which a first time offender of a prior
criminal conviction seeks that the records of that earlier process be
sealed or destroyed, making the records nonexistent or unavailable to the general public. If successful, the records are said to be "expunged".
Black's Law Dictionary defines "expungement of record" as the "Process by which record of criminal conviction is destroyed or sealed from the state or Federal repository."
[1] While expungement deals with an underlying criminal record, it is a
civil action in which the subject is the petitioner or plaintiff asking a court to declare that the records be expunged.