Senate Judiciary reviews draft to let 18–21-year-olds petition to seal records; law-enforcement access undecided

The Senate Judiciary Committee heard a presentation on a committee amendment to Senate Bill 12 that would allow people who were 18 to 21 at the time they committed a qualifying crime to petition a court to seal criminal records 30 days after completion of sentence, with an exception for offenses requiring registration on an offender registry.

Michelle Town, legislative counsel in the Office of Legislative Counsel, told the committee members they should have “draft 2.2 of the committee amendment” and walked the panel through changes from the prior draft, including a provision on registrable offenses and a reorganization of the petitioning and sealing language. Town told the committee that offenses triggering registration with the offender registry “are not eligible for sealing in the proposal.”

The amendment would create an expedited sealing pathway for 18–21-year-olds: after 30 days from completion of sentence a person could petition to seal the criminal record relating to the qualifying crime. The draft sets two conditions for the court to grant the petition: that the petitioner has paid any restitution, and that the state has not shown that sealing the record would be contrary to the interests of justice. Town said the proposal fits into the existing system for issuing orders and notifying agencies that hold records.

Committee members discussed how access to sealed records should be handled. Two approaches under consideration are (1) requiring judicial review, in which a state's attorney or law-enforcement agency would file a motion for a judge to grant access, or (2) creating a model policy developed by a training council that would define permitted law-enforcement access and possible sanctions for improper access. A committee member summarized the trade-off by asking whether access should be handled by “judicial review” or by a model policy developed by a training council, and whether the same process should apply to records sealed under this expedited path as to other sealed records.

The committee indicated consensus that deferred sentences would not be changed by this bill and would remain subject to expungement under current law. Town noted that if the committee converts current expungement language for deferred sentences to sealing, the bill should make clear it would not apply retroactively to people already sentenced before enactment.

Members also flagged several unresolved items the amendment leaves for later policy choices. Those include: how broadly law enforcement should be allowed to access sealed records, whether the committee wants the same access rules applied to 18–21-year-old petitions as to other sealed records, and whether the committee will pursue a petitionless process for offenses that are no longer crimes (committee members said petitionless processes can still require administrative work by an attorney or judge to identify records for removal). The committee expects to hear data next week from a group the transcript refers to as the “prime research group” about recidivism and resistance rates, which members said would inform the choice among different waiting-period options (members discussed a range framed in the meeting as “3 to 7 years” or similar timelines).

The committee also scheduled testimony from a judge on the access question and said it plans to invite the state Bureau of Criminal Identification and the Department of Public Safety to provide operational detail on how often sealed records might be requested and how the process would work in practice. Town offered to produce an updated draft that incorporates the committee’s direction and circulate it to witnesses.

Next steps the committee identified in the meeting were to receive judicial testimony on procedural standards for granting access to sealed records, to review recidivism data expected from the research group, and to receive technical input from BCI and the Department of Public Safety before finalizing language on access and timelines.