>Damned near every case ahead of mine had the judge sounding
>like a robot. Everyone took the same deal: Enter a guilty plea
>now, the judge sets that plea aside for 6 months (in two cases
>a year), you take counseling classes, stay out of trouble for
>whatever length of time, and when it's over you come back to
>court and everything is dismissed.

in my jurisdiction this ^ is what ppl THINK happens when they plead guilty to an offense and are sentenced to court supervision. in reality the guilty plea is taken and entered and if the terms of the supervision are met by the termination date the case is closed but NOT dismissed. the case WILL show up on the person's criminal history forever unless/until they have it expunged if the case is eligible for expungement or sealing. the person's criminal history will show they were charged w/___ (possibly amended from the original charge if that's what happened) and that they were sentenced to a term of court supervision and the case terminated w/all conditions satisfied. that doesn't add up to a conviction and ppl who know what they're looking at will understand that. but, again, the case is NOT dismissed and it will show up on a person's criminal history. several times per week i have to explain this to ppl - that supervision sentences DO NOT RESULT IN DISMISSAL OF THE CASE.

here in my jurisdiction i have successfully worked out agreements w/the state where they'll dismiss my client's case after a given period of time if the client meets certain obligations. that never involves the client pleading guilty to any offense. that outcome is exceedingly rare and that's the outcome you described earlier. the guilty plea/supervision sentence is more common and it DOES NOT result in dismissal of the case and the case will show up on a person's criminal history unless/until they have it expunged. and not every supervision case is eligible for expungement.