Vacating a Washington Reckless Driving Conviction

Attorney Answer

You can apply to have a reckless driving conviction vacated in Washington. The fact that you were never fingerprinted or photographed does not mean there is no conviction record — and it does not affect your eligibility either way.

RCW 9.96.060, "Vacating records of conviction for misdemeanor and gross misdemeanor offenses," lets a person apply to vacate a misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor conviction. Reckless driving under RCW 46.61.500 is within that category. The relief the statute provides is vacation of the conviction — it is not a destruction of the court file, so ask your lawyer specifically what a vacation will and will not remove from the kind of background check you are worried about.

Eligibility runs through the disqualifiers in subsection (2), and which path applies to you depends on one fact about your case that you have not mentioned: whether the reckless driving started life as a DUI charge.

If it did not, the ordinary route applies. Under RCW 9.96.060(2)(g), the waiting period is three years from the later of your release from supervision or probation, your release from total or partial confinement, or the sentencing date. You must also have completed all terms of the sentence — including financial obligations — have no pending charges, and have committed no new crime during that three-year period. On what you describe, a suspended sentence with community service and a one-year restricted license, the relevant date is likely the end of your supervision, not the day you were sentenced.

If it did begin as a DUI, the path is longer but it is not a permanent bar. A reckless driving conviction resulting from a charge originally filed as DUI is a "prior offense" under RCW 46.61.5055(14)(a)(v). Under RCW 9.96.060(2)(d), such a conviction cannot be vacated if you have had a subsequent alcohol or drug violation within 10 years of the arrest date for that prior offense, or if less than 10 years have elapsed since that arrest date. Note what that clock runs from: the arrest date, not the conviction date, and not the date your sentence ended. If your conviction is more than ten years old and you have stayed clean of alcohol and drug violations, you are eligible — being told this is a flat exclusion would have written you off wrongly.

What you can do

1. Get the judgment and sentence from the court that sentenced you. Read the original charging document too — it will show whether the reckless driving was originally filed as a DUI. That one fact decides which path above applies to you. 2. Write down the arrest date from that paperwork. Under RCW 9.96.060(2)(d) the ten-year clock runs from arrest, and people routinely measure from the wrong date. 3. Confirm every financial obligation is paid in full — fines, fees, costs, restitution. Get a zero-balance statement from the clerk. Unpaid legal financial obligations block the application under subsection (2)(g). 4. Confirm you have been discharged from probation or supervision and get documentation of the discharge date. 5. Check your record for anything since: a new crime within the three-year period defeats the ordinary route, and any subsequent alcohol or drug violation defeats the DUI-origin route. 6. File the motion and application to vacate in the court where you were sentenced, and be prepared for the prosecutor to respond. 7. If your case did originate as a DUI and the arrest is close to ten years old, get the exact date before you file. Filing early wastes the filing and the wait.