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Originally posted by RTC:
This law was not made to make things easier on the government or prosecutors. It was made solely to benefit the person who was wrongly accused or charged.

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No, the law wasn't developed to make things easier on law enforcement or prosecutors. But we're still the ones who have to comply with it. So making it confusing, complicated, and impossible to correct mistakes on is just a bad idea. For one thing, it means if we have a hard time complying with it, we're going to miss things, and information that should have been expunged won't be. Even people who are trying hard to follow the statute will make mistakes when the statute doesn't make sense or is subject to numerous interpretations. (Try reading all the expunction cases to see the different ways people have read the same words. Heck, just read this thread.)

For another thing, when something is impossible to correct, you are going to make absolutely, 100% golden sure that it's right. That means I go over expunctions with a fine-tooth comb, and anything that isn't within the exact meaning of the statute is going to be objected to, simply because we're talking about destroying records with no going back. Does that mean that some people who probably deserve to have their records expunged aren't going to get them? Maybe so, and that's unfortunate. But they can have another chance to redo things or have the statute changed (yet again) so they comply. I don't have that option, so I have to make sure I'm not letting anything slip through, or people who really shouldn't have their records expunged do. I know nondisclosures are much easier to handle simply because the results aren't irrevocable. You're allowed to be flexible, and I think that's a very good thing.