The arrest occurred in Florida.
My girlfriend and I have had a very toxic relationship over the last year and a half, which culminated in a big, physical fight where we were both injured but I definitely inflicted more damage (being male and bigger than her). When the fight escalated to its peak, I called the police. I then did not hesitate to show them my injuries (which were scratches and thus immediately visible--hers were bruises that did not show up till later), but she refused to cooperate with the police and even lied to them that she started the whole fight by dumping hot tea on me. She did, in fact, dump warm tea on me, but that was not what started the fight. She defended me and then the police decided to arrest her, at which moment I realized I fucked up and repeatedly asked the police to forget about it and stop the arrest, to no avail.
She got charged with misdemeanor battery which then got dropped by the state attorney about a month later because it would've been a bogus prosecution. The fact remains that my record is spotless despite inflicting much more damage on her and she is facing all the stress of the legal system and every lawyer I speak to says using her one-time expungement card is the only way to remove the arrest from her record. Better yet, she is studying to become a teacher and I've been told that even with expungement she will need to disclose to all potential employers that she was arrested and why. Is there any legal recourse to get her record cleared as if she never got arrested, potentially at my expense? There's not a doubt in my mind that she got the short end of the stick both from me and this flawed justice system.
She is from Virginia and probably will not be teaching in Florida: do state boundaries affect the interaction between arrest disclosure and public records, with or without expungement?
