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Witnesses tell Judiciary committee sealing, not expungement, better balances second chances and oversight
Summary
At a Feb. 5 Judiciary committee hearing on H.566, witnesses including Rachel Jolley (Burlington Community Justice Center) and Jennifer Pullman (Mott Center for Crime Victim Services) urged replacing expungement with sealing for post‑charge diversion, while members debated municipal pilot authority and limited victim access to sealed records.
The Judiciary committee on Feb. 5 heard testimony urging the panel to move H.566 from expungement to a sealing regime for successful post‑charge diversion cases.
Rachel Jolley, director of the Burlington Community Justice Center, told the committee she supports the change and urged clearer public guidance: "some kind of 1 pager or plain language document would be really helpful for our staff and our participants to understand who acts has access to their records and when." Jolley described Burlington's City Circle pilot, saying the program hired a coordinator in November, trained six volunteers and launched on Jan. 5; it has received six tickets for four individuals, with two people participating and three tickets addressed so far.
"The position that coordinator City Circle is being funded by the attorney general's office," Jolley said, describing the role as a precharge position that handles diversion…
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