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Committee advances HB 297 to clarify expungement process, protect access to protective orders
Summary
The House Judiciary Committee voted to favorably recommend HB 297, a cleanup bill to last year's expungement overhaul, clarifying protective-order language and removing certain older DUI records from automatic expungement so they can be handled by petition.
Representative James Lisenby, sponsor of HB 297, told the Utah House Judiciary Committee the bill is a cleanup to the 2024 expungement overhaul and aims to fix remaining procedural issues.
"We passed HB 352, which was a major overhaul in the expungement area," Representative Lisenby said, and HB 297 "is a cleanup bill from last year." He told the committee the measure was developed with the Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice, Bureau of Criminal Identification and the courts to resolve implementation problems.
The bill clarifies that victims can still seek protective orders based on the underlying facts of an incident even after a record is expunged; it does not eliminate the underlying factual basis for protection. Lisenby explained that the change is intended to remove ambiguity in code so that protective orders remain available to victims.
HB 297 also addresses a backlog in the automatic expungement process for older DUI records. Lisenby said the bill removes certain pre‑defined DUI records from the automatic-expungement stream; those records instead must be pursued through the petition-based process so Bureau of Criminal Identification can clear the existing backlog.
No public commenters came forward at the hearing. Representative Auxier moved to give HB 297 a favorable recommendation. The committee took a voice vote; the chair announced, "Seeing no opposition, I'll rule that that motion passes." The committee therefore advanced the bill to the next stage.
The bill was described as technical and narrowly focused on implementation; no changes to the underlying eligibility for expungement were announced during the hearing. The sponsor said staff and stakeholders had worked to ensure victims retain access to protective orders while making the automatic-expungement process function more efficiently.
The committee did not take public testimony opposed to the bill and recorded no amendments during the discussion. The committee vote was announced as passing by voice vote.
