Panel hears bill to seal dismissed criminal records after change to court rule

The House Judiciary Committee opened a hearing on House Bill 1166, which would establish a statutory process to seal criminal records for dismissed, not-guilty or pardoned cases and apply that process retroactively, Rep. Brandy Pyle said.

Supporters told the committee the proposal responds to a change in North Dakota Supreme Court Administrative Rule 41 that removed a sentence limiting name-based public searches and, they said, unintentionally restored public visibility for many long-closed nonconviction records. Opponents — including court administrators and the North Dakota Newspaper Association — warned the bill’s retroactive and emergency provisions would impose large burdens on clerks, erase routine public access and hamper news reporting.

Rep. Brandy Pyle, a state representative from District 22, told the committee the bill “will create a process for criminal records to be sealed much like the current process for successful completion of a deferred sentence,” and urged a do-pass recommendation. Pyle and witnesses said the measure would use the same 61-day timing now used for deferred-sentencing sealing processes in chapter 12.60.1.

Jackie Hall, executive director of the North Dakota Association for Justice, said the change to Administrative Rule 41 had a retroactive effect that made names for dismissed cases visible again in the court’s public search. “We believe this was an inadvertent consequence,” Hall said, and HB 1166 would let people who were found not guilty, pardoned or dismissed follow the same sealing route as other record-removal processes.

Several people who said they suffered personal harm from public access to dismissed records testified in support. Christopher Bitz of Mandan described a dismissed felony accusation he said had been sealed by petition but was again visible in online searches; he said the public availability revived stigma for his children and family. Brad Peterson, legal director at Protection & Advocacy, said faster sealing could protect people with repeated dismissed charges who otherwise face negative consequences in future proceedings or from third parties such as insurers.

Representing the news industry, Cecile Wurman, executive director of the North Dakota Newspaper Association, said she did not oppose sealing but asked the committee to alter the timing. Because the bill would automatically seal records “within 61 days,” she told the committee, reporters could lose the ability to publish the final disposition; she suggested an amendment to allow a small publication window (for example, “after 61 days but no later than 90 days”) so follow-up reporting can record whether charges were dismissed, transferred to federal court, or otherwise disposed.

Sarah Behrens, staff attorney at the State Court Administrator’s Office, warned that an automatic, retroactive sealing requirement would impose a large workload on clerks and raise practical problems. Behrens said records that are sealed under statute would no longer be available without a court order — even to the subject, the prosecutor or law enforcement — and noted many older case files remain paper records. She provided workload estimates to the committee, saying more than 28,000 cases are filed in North Dakota each year and that, limited to the past 10 years, clerks would need to review roughly 283,740 cases to identify those with dismissals, acquittals or pardons.

Opponents also urged the committee to consider changing Administrative Rule 41 rather than imposing a statutory retroactive sealing requirement. Behrens said rule changes could be considered by the court’s rule process and might avoid the retroactivity and administrative burdens that the bill’s current language would create.

Committee members questioned whether the bill’s language should be narrowed to require that all charges in a single case be dismissed before the case can be removed; proponents said they were working with the State’s Attorneys Association and proposed an amendment changing a phrase to require “all criminal charges in the record are dismissed” before automatic sealing applies.

The committee closed the hearing after testimony. Members said they expected to consider proposed amendments before taking further action.

The hearing record includes written testimony submitted online, and committee staff said that written testimony will be reviewed before any vote on the measure.