If the defendant fulfills the stipulations surrounding probation, a judge may then throw out the sentence and guilty plea, clearing the incident from their record.
[1] In the United States, a defendant must plead guilty to at least one of the crimes they are accused of in order to receive a deferred sentence.
What typically happens in such a case is that the potential sentence is deferred for six months, and if the defendant stays out of trouble, the charge is dropped entirely with no public record of the offense.
Upon completion of the ACOD, the charges are automatically sealed, fingerprints and mugshots are destroyed, and the arrest is annulled.
Furthermore, completion of a deferred sentence program usually requires a request to the court to have the underlying charges and arrest sealed.