Senate Judiciary reviews S.12 on sealing and expungement; sheriffs warn of heavy workload, bankers seek carve-outs for financial felonies

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 12 heard testimony on S.12, a bill that would change how criminal records are sealed or expunged. Law-enforcement officials told the committee that expungement work is labor-intensive and asked the committee to preserve limited access to sealed records for criminal-justice purposes. Banking representatives urged carve-outs or longer waiting periods for financial felonies to protect customers and reduce institutional risk.

Mark Anderson, sheriff of William County and president of the Sheriff’s Association, said the association had no formal position on S.12 but offered operational feedback. “The sheriff's association has no position on the bill itself,” Anderson said. He described criminal-record files as an index of arrests, charges and convictions and said agencies are moving from paper to electronic submissions but that many electronic records are scanned images and not text-searchable. “Expungement is incredibly labor intensive,” Anderson said, citing the need to review incident reports, affidavits, body-worn-camera footage and dispatch audio for each order.

Anderson told senators…