Wisconsin lawmakers resurrect expungement bill

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A group of lawmakers is trying again to pass legislation that would allow convicts to ask judges to expunge their criminal records.

The Democratic Rep. Evan Goyke, Republican Rep. Dave Steffen and Republican Sen. Alberta Darling introduced the bill at a news conference on Tuesday. Under the proposal, anyone with a single conviction for a low-level nonviolent offense could ask a judge to expunge that record after the convict completed a sentence.

The Assembly passed a similar bill last session but it died in the Senate.

A judge can now order that a convict’s record be expunged upon sentence completion if the convict’s offense was relatively minor and nonviolent and the offender is under 25 and has no previous felony conviction. The judge have to decide at sentencing hearings whether criminal records have to be expunged.