Advisory council questions gaps in Connecticut's clean-slate law and family-violence coding

Megan Scanlon, co-chair of the council and director at CCADV, told members the group had been asked to review an instance where an early charge did not appear on an individual's record under the state's clean-slate law, complicating decisions about bond and release. "Because it was the first charge on this individual's record," Scanlon said, "that was the determination" on release in that case.

Why it matters: Council members said the apparent omission shows how implementation details can affect public safety and case outcomes. If common domestic-violence-related charges are erased under the clean-slate process, victims and prosecutors may face consequences in evidence, risk assessment and future prosecution.

Judge Kevin Doyle, a superior court judge, reviewed how the system is intended to work under Conn. Gen. Stat. 46b-38h. "The way the system works is if a person pleads to one of the offenses listed in...46b-38h," Doyle said, describing a process in which arrest paperwork (the Uniform Arrest Report, or UAR) includes a family-violence checkbox; clerks code those cases; family-relations referrals or protective orders create additional triggers; and court information systems then share coded data with the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP).

Doyle and other members emphasized the three main triggers that can label a case as family violence: the UAR family-violence box, issuance of a protective order during proceedings, or a family-relations assessment or referral. Once coded and entered into court information systems, Doyle said, those cases can be excluded from automatic erasure under the clean-slate framework.

Members pressed on where the gaps were. Sen. Mae Flexer and others said the slide packet showed a set of crimes currently counted under 46b-38h and a second list of crimes not included. Several members named charges they commonly see in domestic-violence contexts'unlawful restraint, assault third degree, risk of injury, breach of peace and violations of conditions of release'and worried those could be left off the exclusion list and thereby be erased.

Participants debated two policy pathways: (1) expand clean-slate exclusions to capture all convictions tied to domestic violence; or (2) refactor statutes to create clearer domestic-violence-specific charges or an enhancement/flagging mechanism so the court and law enforcement can reliably capture the conduct. "Some states have separate domestic-assault statutes," one member noted, which can make coding and collateral consequences clearer; others warned that enumerating every related offense risks omissions and suggested a finding-on-the-record approach or a flag tied to the facts of the case.

Multiple members recommended gathering hard data first. Council members asked staff to compile 2025 conviction counts for both the offenses listed as included under 46b-38h and the offenses shown on the slide as not included, so the group could see volume and where erasures might be most consequential. Scanlon summarized the near-term plan: Sen. Flexer will consult colleagues who drafted the clean-slate law about legislative intent; staff and council members will gather statistics; and the court-based issues subcommittee will do deeper work if needed.

Of next steps, Scanlon said the council would "gather the data" and consider whether the court-based issues subcommittee should pursue a targeted recommendation. The council set follow-up work and expected to return findings to policymakers if the data indicate unintended erasures.