There's No Such Thing as Expunging a Criminal Record Anymore

In June 2017, the police came to Alan's house around 6 a.m. with a warrant. Alan, a 51-year-old father and IT professional in New Jersey, had never been arrested before. So he was baffled when the police told him he had failed to appear in court earlier that spring. He was fingerprinted and photographed and spent five days waiting to see a judge, only to have the pending charges dismissed. It turned out that a summons to appear in municipal court earlier that month had been mailed to an old addr...