Mazumder

*736 The People filed an information charging defendant Devashish Mazumder with two assaultive felony sex offenses. As part of a negotiated plea, the People dismissed the two felony counts and Mazumder pleaded guilty to one count of misdemeanor simple battery. After Mazumder successfully completed a period of informal probation, the superior court dismissed the action. ( Pen. Code, § 1203.4, subd. (a)(1).)

Mazumder then filed a petition for a finding of factual innocence and the sealing and destruction of his arrest records. "In any case where a person has *737 been arrested, and an accusatory pleading has been filed, but where no conviction has occurred , the defendant may, at any time after dismissal of the action, petition the court that dismissed the action for a finding that the defendant is factually innocent of the charges for which the arrest was *454 made." (§ 851.8, subd. (c), italics added.) If there is a finding of factual innocence, then the court "shall order" the sealing and subsequent destruction of the defendant's arrest records. (§ 851.8, subd. (b).)

Here, the trial court denied Mazumder's petition for a finding of factual innocence without conducting an…

Mazumder is statutorily eligible for the relief he seeks pursuant to Penal Code section 851.8, subdivision (c), ( section 851.8(c) ), 1 since the majority's disagreement with Mazumder's reliance on People v. Laiwala (2006) 143 Cal.App.4th 1065 , 49 Cal.Rptr.3d 639 ( Laiwala ) is not well founded. I therefore respectfully dissent.

As the Laiwala court observed: "A factual innocence petition must be granted if the petitioner is 'factually innocent of the charges for which the arrest was made .' In this case, Laiwala was arrested on a charge of grand theft of a trade secret. He was not arrested for 'data theft.' Accordingly, the absence of any ground for a reasonable belief that the information taken was *747 a trade secret establishes that he is factually innocent of grand theft of a trade secret, the charge for which he was arrested. It is irrelevant whether there was reasonable cause to believe that Laiwala had committed data theft, a crime with which he was never charged and for which he was never arrested." ( Laiwala , supra , 143 Cal.App.4th at p. 1072 , 49 Cal.Rptr.3d 639 , quoting § 851.8, subd. (c).)

This analysis is equally applicable here and it compels the same result.…