Support pours out for second expungement proposal

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More than a dozen people, including lawyers, a nun, an electrician and a high school counselor lined up Thursday in support of a bill that would expand the state’s rules that allow certain people to seek the elimination of their criminal history.

Current law lets criminal records be destroyed or sealed as long as the crimes they record were committed by someone who had not reached the age of 25. However, certain limits apply.

Elimination, for instance, is not allowed for records of felonies or misdemeanors carrying a maximum prison term of more than six years. Current law also only allows courts to issue expungement orders at sentencing proceedings. And the court records themselves cannot be eliminated until offenders have served out their sentences.

Assembly Bill 335 would, among other things, let someone who had not gotten an expungement order during sentencing proceedings to still file a petition for expungement after completing his sentence.

Testifying on Thursday before the Assembly’s Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety, the bill coauthors — state Reps. Evan Goyke, D-Milwaukee, and David Steffen, R-Green Bay — said their proposal is the result of 10 months of consulting judges, public defenders, criminal defense attorneys and other participants in the criminal justice system.

“We’re not first out of the box on this one,” said Steffen. “But we think we have one heck of a product. We got everyone in on the front end.”

Another expungement bill, Senate Bill 53, was introduced earlier this year and also received a favorable committee recommendation. That proposal, which has yet to be taken up by the full Legislature, would let offenders seek expungement orders a year after completing their sentences. The fee for filing such a petition would be $100.

In on divergence from AB 335, SB 53 would apply only prospectively. Also, SB 53 would not apply to municipal violations.

Many of those who testified Thursday on AB 335 said that lawmakers should make sure that any bill overhauling the state’s expungement laws applies both retroactively and prospectively. Corey Ashley and Susan Lunn, staff attorneys for Legal Action of Wisconsin, testified that they receive countless calls from people trying to get their records expunged. They’ve heard about convictions dating as far back as 1974.

Lunn and Ashley said they were concerned by certain provisions of the bill that would allow a judge to issue orders questioning defendants’ eligibility for expungement. Another provision of concern would prevent defendant from being eligible until they have paid all the fees and fines they owe.

Ray Dall’Osto, a Milwaukee criminal defense attorney who testified on the behalf of the State Bar of Wisconsin, agreed that keeping the bill retroactive was important. He said that revisions to the state’s expungement laws are long overdue and have been bounced between the state Legislature and the state Supreme Court.

“It’s an important bill that provides modest but necessary clarifications of the law,” he said. “I’ve been working on this issue since 2006.”

The proposal also includes provisions requiring a court to review an expungement petition at a hearing unless the hearing is waived by a victim. The judge may either order that the be record expunged or deny the petition. In the latter case, another petition may not be filed for two years.

The bill also deals with concerns that have arisen over employers’ use of background checks, specifying that expunged crimes are not considered convictions in an employment context. The bill would also stipulate that employment discrimination occurs when an applicant is asked to supply information about an expunged crime.  It also requires the state Department of Justice to black out records of expunged crimes when responding to public-records request.

Beyond expungement, the committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety heard testimony on Thursday about a bill that would make the battery of tribal judges, tribal prosecutors and tribal law-enforcement officers a crime. Follow @erikastrebel