Committee hears package of fixes and expansion to juvenile expungement process

The House Judiciary Committee held a public hearing on House Bill 2677, which would expand and refine the state’s system-initiated juvenile record-expungement process. The bill was described by its sponsor as the final installment of a multi-year effort to modernize juvenile expungement.

Representative Willie Chotzin, chief sponsor, told the committee the bill does not change who is eligible for expungement or the timing of eligibility but changes the process by which certain juvenile records can be expunged. The bill would allow system-initiated expungement (sometimes called automatic expungement) to proceed for a defined set of felony-level records if an individual meets the substantive eligibility criteria: case closed (no probation or parole), case not waived to adult court, at least four years have passed, the person is at least 18 years old, no convictions for a felony or class A misdemeanor during that period, no pending criminal cases or investigations, and no outstanding restitution.

Chotzin said the bill also advances three substantive fixes: earlier victim notification (so victims are aware of potential expungement eligibility at or prior to adjudication), more meaningful opportunity for district attorney review to confirm there are no pending investigations, and a technical correction to ensure misdemeanor convictions that carry four-year firearm restrictions are not expunged before those restrictions expire. He framed the proposal as increasing equitable access to the benefit of expungement: historically only 3–7 percent of eligible juveniles have pursued expungement through a person-initiated process, a disparity that the bill would address by initiating the process administratively.

Jim Goodwin, representing the Oregon Juvenile Department Directors Association, told the committee the work of automated expungement requires coordination across hundreds of agencies and that HB 2677 would close remaining implementation gaps left by Senate Bills 575 (2021) and 519 (2023). Krista Obold Eshelman, supervising attorney at Youth Rights and Justice, described the organization’s juvenile-expungement clinic and said that people who do pursue expungement often have already experienced harms—lost job or housing opportunities—because the process is complicated to navigate. She also highlighted racial disparities: youth of color are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system and are more likely to be harmed by the persistence of juvenile records.

Committee members asked about how the prior automated-expungement changes have been working. The sponsor and witnesses said implementation on the juvenile side has proceeded well and that participating agencies (OJD, OIA, juvenile directors and others) remain engaged in technical work to operationalize the process. Advocates and system partners were described as working toward consensus amendments, which the sponsor said would be posted to the record.

No formal committee vote on HB 2677 was recorded during the hearing; the public hearing was closed after testimony and questions.