The Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 31 began marking up S.12, a bill that would change how criminal records are sealed and who may see them. Committee members discussed expanding the list of offenses eligible for sealing, keeping licensing agencies from routine access to sealed records, and setting specific waiting periods before a person may petition the court to seal a conviction.

Committee staff said the draft will continue to be revised, but that the committee had reached an initial agreement to preserve existing limits on licensing and agency access to sealed records (committee staff characterized this as leaving the current system in place so licensing offices would not gain new routine access). Michelle (staff member) summarized that the bill’s approach is to allow petition-based sealing in most cases while preserving an option for petitionless sealing for offenses that are no longer crimes (the committee noted the cannabis example as precedent).

Why it matters: sealing changes who can see a person’s conviction history and for how long. Supporters said sealing helps people obtain employment and licenses after a period of law‑abiding behavior; opponents and some staff flagged implementation and administrative limits, including technology and rulemaking that agencies must complete before some forms of access could happen.

Key decisions and proposals discussed

- Access by licensing agencies: Committee members agreed not to expand licensing agencies’ routine access to sealed records in the current draft. That position was described repeatedly as keeping the status quo for agencies that license professionals working with vulnerable populations; those agencies would still be able to require disclosures where current law already allows it. The committee also discussed a separate administrative‑rule path tied to an agency’s adoption of rules; members raised concerns that an objection under the legislative administrative review process (LCAR) could effectively block delegated access and that the statute’s current wording may produce a terminal outcome if LCAR objects.

- Who may petition and petitionless (automatic) sealing: The bill as drafted requires an individual to petition the court for sealing in most cases. Committee members discussed petitionless sealing for categories of conduct that are no longer prohibited (the committee referenced prior work on cannabis automatic sealing as an example). Staff said petitionless sealing would require additional court and information‑technology work and money, and pointed the committee to a prior judicial study and report on the logistics of petitionless processes.

- Waiting periods and access windows: Committee staff outlined the draft’s timetable: qualifying misdemeanors would be eligible for petition after a three‑year waiting period (sentence completed plus three years); qualifying felonies would generally have a seven‑year waiting period; qualifying DUIs would have a 10‑year access window before sealing (staff noted that sealed DUIs can still be used as predicate offenses for subsequent DUI proceedings). The committee accepted those time frames as a starting point subject to later revision.

- New offenses and exclusions: The committee reviewed how the draft organizes eligible offenses: for misdemeanors the bill treats all misdemeanors as eligible except a specified exclusion list (which includes sex offenses, crimes involving children, protected‑person abuse, and several others); for felonies it treats no felonies as eligible except a carved‑out list (primarily property and certain drug felonies). Staff reported they would remove an erroneous listing that misidentified one offense as a felony (credit‑card fraud entry numbered as a felony in the drafting notes) after confirming the correct statutory classification.

- Pending charges and convictions during the waiting period: The committee considered whether a new pending charge or later conviction should bar or toll eligibility. The draft directs courts not to act on a petition while there is a pending criminal charge. Members debated whether, and at what level of new conduct (any misdemeanor, any felony, or only certain felonies), the waiting period for an earlier offense should restart. Some members favored restarting the clock only for subsequent felonies; others recommended treating any conviction as a tolling event and leaving finer distinctions to judicial discretion.

- Plea agreements and sealing waivers: A member proposed prohibiting plea agreements that expressly bar a defendant from ever petitioning to seal or expunge that record. The proposal arose from concerns that some plea language could undermine the legislative policy of permitting sealing for eligible offenses; committee members asked to hear from prosecutors about why such language appears in plea deals and whether a statutory prohibition would raise separation‑of‑powers or negotiation‑authority issues for prosecutors.

Implementation, information access exceptions, and technical constraints

- Technology and workload: Staff warned that doing petitionless sealing (automatic sealing) at scale requires technical upgrades and resources; the previous cannabis work was intensive. Committee staff provided a data point: between Jan. 2022 and Sept. 2023, the courts issued 12,948 expungement orders related to prior cannabis work, illustrating the administrative volume involved.

- Law enforcement and background‑check access: The draft preserves several statutory exceptions that allow specific entities (criminal‑justice agencies, the state criminal information center and FBI CJIS for firearm background checks, and certain discovery obligations) to access sealed records in limited circumstances. Committee members noted that decisions about whether law enforcement could view sealed records after a specified access window are likely to be constrained by existing technology in criminal‑records systems and could be an important leverage point as the committee finalizes time windows.

- Defendant and counsel access, research, and licensing uses: The bill keeps a defendant and their counsel able to access sealed records in perpetuity. The draft also includes research exceptions and various limited uses (for litigation, for court citation, and for internal agency hiring investigations) and adds the attorney general to some criminal‑justice categories that previously were not listed.

Next steps and outstanding questions

Committee members asked staff to: (1) clean up statutory cross‑references and felony/misdemeanor classifications, (2) discuss petitionless mechanics and data from the judiciary’s previous cannabis work with Judge Tony or the judicial study team, (3) seek input from prosecutors about plea‑agreement restrictions, (4) get technical detail from the crime information center on whether law enforcement access can be limited by system design, and (5) review administrative‑rule language tied to LCAR to avoid an unintended statutory terminal outcome. Members said the committee will continue markups over the coming weeks.

Ending: The committee recessed after finishing discussion of the draft’s exceptions and signaled follow‑up requests to staff; no formal votes were recorded during the session.