The Court initially denied the sealing application on a Class 6 felony aggravated assault conviction. Future First filed a Motion to Reconsider under ARS § 13-911 and the Maricopa County Superior Court reversed and sealed the record.
At a glance
| Original conviction | Aggravated Assault (ARS § 13-1204), Class 6 Felony, 2000 |
| Application filed | Sealing Records under ARS § 13-911, 2026 |
| Court | Maricopa County Superior Court |
| Result | Sealing Record Granted |
| Rights restored | Civil and firearm rights through paired set aside |
| Time from application to grant | 63 days from application filing to granted |
The challenge
The client had a Class 6 felony aggravated assault conviction from 2000. He had paid every dollar owed, completed probation early, and stayed out of trouble for nearly two decades. Future First filed a sealing application under ARS § 13-911 alongside the set aside request. The judge granted the set aside on the same day, then denied the sealing application separately. The denial put a wall between the client and the federal-and-state level cleanup that only sealing delivers.
A set aside dismisses the judgment of guilt and lifts most state-law disabilities. A sealing under ARS § 13-911 goes further. It removes the arrest, the charging documents, and the case records from public access. Without the seal the client kept showing up in background checks even after the set aside.
What we did
Future First filed a Motion for Reconsideration under ARS § 13-911 directly attacking the basis for the denial. The reply walked the Court back through the statutory timeframes under ARS § 13-911(E), the firearm rights restoration that had already issued the same week, and the public safety calculus the statute requires. We made the case that granting the set aside and denying the seal on the same record produced an internally inconsistent ruling that the statute does not support on these facts.
The Court reviewed the Motion to Reconsider and the Department of Public Safety report required under ARS § 13-911(H). The judge agreed the offense was eligible, the timeframes had passed, and the seal served the client’s best interests and public safety. The Court entered an Order Sealing under ARS § 13-911. The whole process from initial filing to the reversal took 63 days.
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If your sealing application got denied
A denial is not the end of the case. ARS § 13-911 gives the trial court discretion, and that discretion can be revisited through a Motion to Reconsider when the initial ruling overlooks a statutory factor or conflicts with a paired order in the same case. The motion has to point at the specific gap, walk through the elements the judge already found on the set aside side, and show why granting the seal lines up with the statute.
Sealing matters because of what survives a set aside. Even after a judgment of guilt is dismissed, the underlying arrest records, the charging documents, and the case file remain visible to background checks, news aggregators, and database scrapers. Sealing under ARS § 13-911 directs the Clerk of the Court and the Department of Public Safety to pull all of that out of public access. The change is the difference between a record that does not bar you legally and a record that does not show up at all.
If you got a denial on a sealing application, do not wait. The motion practice has tight timelines and the underlying record only gets staler. A focused reconsideration brief delivered while the file is still active gives the trial court the cleanest path to reverse.
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Call us
Want to seal an old Arizona conviction? Call Future First Criminal Law at 602-900-6240 or request a free consultation. We have handled hundreds of Arizona record removal applications across every statute path. The cleanup is permanent and the process moves faster when handled by a firm that knows the local court.
Anonymized in line with firm policy. Client name not used. Specific dates approximated to year only. Outcome described reflects this client’s actual results. Past outcomes do not guarantee future results. For more detailed information on Arizona record removal law, visit the Arizona State Legislature website.
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