Forever, under normal circumstances, is now long the convictions will appear. Exceptions are extremely rare and would require cooperation from both the prosecution and the judge (and court staff).

Do not assume that I am your attorney because of my response here, since I would not normally be taking any further action on your case. You can request further clarifications on AVVO or see fifteen years of archived past answers at http://www.avvo.com/attorneys/53401-wi-jay-nixon-1529181/answers.html?sort=recency http:// or at http://www.lawguru.com/answers/search/attorney/jknixon.

You write that you already have been denied two positions for undisclosed reasons regarding your background check. If so, you should be aware of your rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act when a potential employer denies you a job because of your background report. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires the employer to provide two notices to you when taking an adverse employment action based on information in a background report. The first notice is called a “pre-adverse action notice,” which includes a copy of the background report and a summary of your rights under the FCRA. The purpose of the pre-adverse action notice is to allow the employee/applicant an opportunity to clear up any misstatements in the report and to address any misunderstandings the report may have created in the employer’s mind. For this reason, the pre-adverse action notice must be provided to the employee/applicant BEFORE the employer takes the adverse employment action. The second notice is called the post-adverse action notice, which must include a statement of the adverse action taken, the identity of the consumer reporting agency, and other additional information. 



If your potential employers did not provide you with a copy of the background report before they chose not to hire you, and instead simply told you that it was because of your background/background report, then you may have claims to pursue against the employer under the FCRA. Many FCRA attorneys offer free consultations.

Unfortunately, your background is there to stay and can be accessed indefinitely through a thorough background check- even if they are not easily accessible to the general public (i.e. on CCAP).

It may be possible to file a motion with the court asking that the citation be reopened, and to negotiate a dismissal with the prosecutor. If that were successful, then you could seek removal of the arrest from your record. Being able to achieve something like this would depend on a lot of factors, and could not be guaranteed. I recommend that you have an attorney assist you, and you would have to decide whether the cost it is worth it to you..

You are confusing the rules regarding court record retention, available at link below, with law enforcement records, which are maintained indefinitely.

http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/misc/scr/72

To see if this arrest was reported to the State Crime Information Bureau, you can check your own history with them.

http://www.doj.state.wi.us/dles/cib/background-check-criminal-history-information

Even once the case ages off of CCAP, law enforcement records may remain.