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Committee to tackle proposals for expungement, pro bono work for DAs

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//April 24, 2017//

Committee to tackle proposals for expungement, pro bono work for DAs

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//April 24, 2017//

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A state Assembly committee will hold a public hearing Thursday on a slew of bills, including one that would change the state’s procedures for expunging a person’s record.

Under current law, courts can order a record to be expunged of certain offenses people committed before they reached age 25. The records cannot be eliminated for felonies or misdemeanors that carry a maximum prison term of more than six years. Also, the order must be made only at sentencing and the record is expunged only once the sentence is complete.

Assembly Bill 93 would eliminate that process and instead allow defendants to petition the court a year after completing their sentence for an expungement order. The fee for filing the petition would be $100.

The bill, however, does not address the problem of people who were charged with crimes but never prosecuted. About year ago, the Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed a petition that would have eliminated online records of criminal charges that never led to convictions.

Several organizations, including the Association of State Prosecutors, the League of Women Voters and the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association, have registered in support of AB 93.

Also on Thursday, the committee will hear public testimony on a pair of bills, AB 36 and Senate Bill 117, that would allow full-time county prosecutors to do pro bono legal work so long as it does not conflict with the interests of their county.

Current law prohibits county prosecutors from practicing law outside of the their work for the county unless it is work for a civil case that they were involved in before taking office and so long as it does not conflict with any interest of the county.

The State Bar of Wisconsin has registered in support of the bill.

Other bills the committee is set to hear include AB 137, which is part of a six-bill package involving contributions made to candidates campaigning for a judicial office. The bill would require parties in pending litigation to notify the judge and parties of when and how much they contributed to the presiding judge or justice’s campaign. Not doing so would result in a $500 penalty.

The committee will also be taking public comments on AB 152, which allows personal representatives the option of transferring an estate by affidavit without court supervisions, so long as the estate is smaller than $50,000; and AB 178, which would allow court commissioners to issue search warrants for civil violations involving driving while drunk or under the influence of a controlled substance. Currently, court commissioners can only issue warrants in criminal matters.

All the bills are up for public hearing starting at 11 a.m. Thursday in Room 300 North East of the state Capitol. To become law, the bills would have to be approved by the full Legislature and signed by Gov. Scott Walker.

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