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House Judiciary hearing on S.12 exposes disputes over sealed records, victims and diversion
Summary
Committee heard that draft S.12 would give prosecutors broader access to sealed files than defense attorneys, that listed qualifying crimes merit careful review for victims, and that advocates disagree about whether diversion records should be sealed or expunged.
The Vermont House Judiciary Committee considered S.12, a bill to change how criminal records are sealed or expunged, as witnesses raised sharply different views about who should be able to see sealed files, which crimes should be excluded from sealing and whether diversion records should be sealed or expunged.
Marshall Paul of the Office of the Defender General told the committee that new language in the draft (he pointed to pages 25–26) would give prosecutors more routine access to sealed files while leaving defense attorneys with a judge-by-judge petition process. “We go from a system where both sides have an equal amount of access to expunged files to a system where…prosecutors have essentially a library of access to sealed files,” Paul said, adding that the change “exacerbates the inequities between the prosecution and the defense.”
The shifts matter for victims and restitution,…
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