Judiciary committee hearing on S.12 focuses on records management, researcher access and protections for people with criminal records

Witnesses at a Judiciary Committee hearing urged lawmakers to strengthen records-management, public-access and research protections in S.12, the bill that would expand use of sealing and expungement of criminal records in Vermont.

"We believe that expungement should remain on the table more broadly than it is represented in this bill," Susana Davis, Executive Director of Racial Equity, told the committee. Davis said the bill needs clearer definitions for sealing, expungement and retention, stronger records-management planning and plain-language materials so people understand how the law affects them.

Davis asked the committee to consult the state archivist and the chief records officer and to consider requiring that people routinely receive a hard copy of their own records before records are altered or destroyed. "We see that as an important part of not just transparency, but also as access to justice," she said.

Researchers and analysts told the panel they also need continued access to sealed information for longitudinal studies and for tracking disparate impacts over time. "Criminal histories are the gold standard because they are fingerprint supported," said Dr. Robin Joy, director of research, explaining that criminal-history files avoid duplicate or alias records and produce more reliable research measures. Monica Weaver, executive director of the crime-mapping/research program, urged the committee to retain a provision labeled in the draft as subdivision C(10) on page 27 that would permit researchers to receive sealed information for approved analyses.

Weaver and Joy described standard steps researchers would take to measure outcomes such as employment after sealing: obtain names and dates of birth for sealed cases, match them to Department of Labor records and produce aggregate reports. Joy warned that outright destruction of records can hinder future research and long-term accountability: "When records are destroyed, the next generation may not have the data they need to understand harms," she said, citing other jurisdictions and archival practice as reasons to preserve data for statistical use while protecting individuals.

Both Davis and the researchers raised operational issues that they said the bill should address: disparate data systems across courts, prosecutors and corrections that may not interoperate; the costs and security risks of storing additional records and broader access lists; and the limits of state authority to address so‑called "digital punishment"—information that remains on commercial background-check websites or in other jurisdictions after state sealing.

Davis urged caution about allowing roadside or on-the-spot access to sealed records by law enforcement, saying "we may be priming ourselves to make judgment calls during roadside stops that may not actually be reflective of the actual threat." She also warned that the broader the list of people who have access to sealed or expunged records and the longer that access persists, the greater the financial and legal risk to the state of misuse or breaches.

Committee members and staff engaged witnesses on technical questions about which fields are preserved in court and criminal-history systems, how expungement interacts with FBI and Interstate Identification Index (III/I) transmissions, and how deferred-sentencing expungements are recorded. Joy said she receives a court adjudication extract that does not remove records for expungements, enabling some research despite gaps in the fingerprint-based criminal-history extracts. She also noted that FBI and interstate data transmission rules are stricter and that researchers need clarity on what is transmitted outside state systems.

On process, the committee chair proposed several drafting directions rather than immediate floor action: invite the state archivist to testify on retention policy and the Public Records Act; preserve the research-access clause (C(10)) in the bill; ask the court to report annual counts that differentiate individuals from charges; and consider adding assault against a law-enforcement officer to the list of offenses that may remain unsealed. The chair also suggested restoring language to cover deferred sentences in the sealing or expungement provisions and exploring whether a petition procedure or automatic process best serves different use cases.

No formal votes or amendments were recorded during this hearing. Committee members said they will continue drafting and follow up with witnesses, the archivist and agency staff before the next markup.

The discussion highlighted competing priorities: minimizing harm to individuals through sealing and expungement while preserving the ability of state statistical and research entities to measure outcomes and document disparities. Members signaled they will try to refine S.12's operational language on access, definitions and retention before the bill moves further in committee.