A deferred prosecution agreement in Florida is a written contract between you and the State Attorney’s Office that pauses your criminal case. You agree to complete a set of conditions over a defined period, and the prosecutor agrees to drop the charges if you do. No guilty plea is entered, and no admission of guilt is required to start. Finish the agreement and the State Attorney files a nolle prosequi, which dismisses the case. Fail any part of it, and prosecution picks back up on the original charges.
Deferred Prosecution Is Not the Same as Pretrial Intervention
Florida has two diversion tracks that get used interchangeably in conversation but work differently on paper. A deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) is an informal arrangement created by the local State Attorney’s Office. No single statute governs it. Each circuit sets its own eligibility rules, conditions, and fees, and the prosecutor has full discretion over who gets an offer.
Pretrial intervention (PTI) is the statutory program under Florida Statutes section 948.08. It requires sign-off from the program administrator, the victim, the state attorney, and the judge who presided at your first appearance, and you have to waive your speedy trial right for the diversion period.1Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 948.08 – Pretrial Intervention Program
The practical difference is who controls the process. A DPA is handled by the prosecutor’s office. PTI involves the court and a program administrator from the beginning. Both can end in a dismissal, but the rules and oversight are not the same. If someone offers you “diversion,” ask which program it actually is.
Who Qualifies for a DPA
No defendant has an automatic right to a DPA. The State Attorney’s Office looks at the charge, the facts, your criminal history, and what the victim has to say before deciding whether to make an offer.
DPAs are most commonly offered for petit theft, certain drug possession charges, and minor offenses like driving without a valid license. Violent felonies are almost always excluded. The victim’s position carries real weight, especially where restitution is involved; if the victim opposes diversion, the prosecutor is far less likely to offer it.
For the statutory PTI program, the baseline in section 948.08 is that you must be a first offender, or have no more than one prior nonviolent misdemeanor conviction, and you must be charged with a misdemeanor or third-degree felony. Specialized tracks exist for substance abuse cases, veterans, and defendants with mental health conditions, each with somewhat broader windows. A substance abuse intervention program can take defendants charged with certain second-degree felonies like drug possession under chapter 893, as long as the offense isn’t violent and there’s no prior felony conviction.1Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 948.08 – Pretrial Intervention Program
What’s in the Agreement
The DPA is negotiated after arrest and charging but before any formal plea or trial setting. Your defense attorney can request it, or the State Attorney may raise it on initial review. Terms are then worked out in writing.
DPA durations typically run six to twelve months, written into the contract. The statutory PTI program starts at 90 days and can be extended by another 90 with the administrator’s request and the state attorney’s consent; substance abuse intervention programs run at least one year.1Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 948.08 – Pretrial Intervention Program You, your attorney, and the designated SAO representative sign. No plea is entered. The court keeps jurisdiction, but active prosecution is paused.
Conditions fall into a few predictable buckets. Every DPA requires you to stay out of new criminal trouble for the entire period. Most include a “Cost of Prosecution” fee; in the Eighth Judicial Circuit, for example, that fee is $150 and must be paid by money order or cashier’s check.2Eighth Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office. Deferred Prosecution Other circuits set their own amounts. Restitution is nearly always required when there’s a financial loss to a victim. Some offices also charge a monthly supervision fee.
Behavioral conditions are tailored to the offense. A theft charge usually means an anti-theft course. A drug charge may mean counseling and random drug testing. Community service hours are almost universal, and some offices let you buy out hours with a charitable contribution. You’ll report to a monitoring agency, often the local probation department, on a set schedule. Before the agreement expires, you need to deliver proof of each completed requirement to the SAO: payment receipts, course completion certificates, community service verification, and clean drug test results where applicable.2Eighth Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office. Deferred Prosecution
What Happens If You Finish Successfully
When you’ve met every condition, paid everything owed, and avoided new charges, the SAO files a nolle prosequi with the court. The charges are dismissed.2Eighth Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office. Deferred Prosecution No conviction appears on your record.
Dismissal is the main benefit, but it isn’t a clean slate on its own. The arrest record and the court filing stay in public databases and can appear on background checks. The case shows as dismissed rather than as a conviction, which matters to employers and licensing boards, but it doesn’t disappear. For that, you’ll need to pursue expungement separately.
What Happens If You Violate It
Miss a reporting date, fail a drug test, skip a required class, or get arrested on something new, and the SAO can terminate the agreement. In most SAO-run programs there’s no formal hearing process; the prosecutor simply reinstates the original charges, and the case moves forward as if diversion had never been offered.1Florida Senate. Florida Statutes 948.08 – Pretrial Intervention Program
The original charges still carry their full penalties, including possible jail time, fines, and a conviction on your record. Conditions you already completed don’t typically get credited back. Hours you logged, fees you paid, and classes you sat through are gone. A DPA is one chance, not a safety net with a second one underneath.
Clearing the Arrest After a Successful DPA
Because a DPA ends in dismissal with no plea and no adjudication of guilt, it generally puts you in a strong position to petition for expungement under Florida Statutes section 943.0585. Expungement removes the record from public access, so standard background checks won’t show it. To qualify, you need to meet several conditions:
- You’ve never been found guilty of a criminal offense in Florida or adjudicated delinquent for a felony or certain listed misdemeanors.
- You’ve completed all supervision related to the case.
- You’ve never had a prior court-ordered sealing or expungement in Florida; the limit is one in your lifetime.
- Your offense isn’t on the list of charges that can never be expunged under section 943.0584, which includes murder, sexual battery, robbery, kidnapping, human trafficking, drug trafficking, arson, and several dozen others.
The process begins with an application to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for a certificate of eligibility, which requires a certified disposition (or a completion certificate for diversion cases) and a fingerprint card.3Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Applying for a Certificate of Eligibility for Court-Ordered Sealing or Expungement After you receive the certificate, you file a petition in the court where the case was filed.4Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 943.0585 – Court-Ordered Expunction of Criminal History Records
Think carefully about the one-per-lifetime limit before using your expungement on a minor case. If there’s any realistic chance of a future arrest, spending it now may not be the best move.
A Warning for Non-Citizens
If you aren’t a U.S. citizen, a DPA deserves a closer look before you sign. Federal immigration law defines “conviction” differently than Florida does. Under 8 U.S.C. section 1101(a)(48)(A), a conviction exists for immigration purposes when a person has entered a guilty plea, a nolo contendere plea, or admitted sufficient facts to warrant a finding of guilt, and a judge has ordered some form of punishment or restraint on liberty.5Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 8 U.S. Code 1101 – Definitions
A standard DPA with no plea and no court-ordered conditions should not meet that definition. The operative word is “should.” Immigration authorities have pushed on what counts as an admission of facts, and some diversion paperwork does ask the defendant to acknowledge the circumstances of the offense. If your agreement includes any written acknowledgment of the facts, or if a court (rather than only the prosecutor) imposes any condition, the arrangement starts looking more like a conviction under federal law. Have an immigration attorney review the exact language before you sign. A general reassurance from a criminal defense attorney isn’t enough in this area.
How a Dismissed Case Still Shows Up
Until you expunge the record, the arrest and the court filing stay visible. An employer running a standard background check will see an arrest and a dismissed case. They won’t see a conviction, but they will see the charge.
You can truthfully answer “no” to any question asking whether you’ve been convicted of a crime. The question to watch for is one that asks about arrests, charges, or court proceedings rather than convictions. Several Florida professional licensing boards ask the broader version, and even after expungement, certain government agencies and licensing boards retain access to sealed and expunged records under Florida law. If you work in a licensed field, assume the licensing board can see the arrest.
For private employment, expungement is the strongest protection. Once the record is expunged, it’s removed from public access and won’t show up on standard commercial background checks. Until then, a dismissed charge is visible, and how an employer reads it is up to them.