The recently proposed amendment to Pennsylvania State expungement law, Senate Bill 166 was unanimously approved by the Pennsylvania State Senate on February 23, 2015 and approved by the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee on June 28. The next step for the bill is to be approved by the House of Representatives, concurred upon by the State Senate once more, and then it must be signed into law or vetoed by the Governor within 10 days.
As Pennsylvania law currently stands, misdemeanor convictions can only be expunged if:
– You are 70 years old and have not been arrested in 10 years.
– You have been dead for three years.
– You were convicted of a summary offense and have not been arrested for 5 years.
As anyone with any common sense could tell you, the current expungement laws don’t help too many people. For one, the law is being amended to help people who made mistakes in their youth to find meaningful employment something that most 70 year olds and all dead people have little use for. The guidelines for summary offenses will stay the same, as the bill is focusing on people with low level misdemeanor convictions.
The proposed bill originally added expungement guidelines to existing Pennsylvania law. However after passing through the House Judiciary Committee, the Bill has been amended to give courts the power to order limited access to people’s criminal records upon petition. Law enforcement agencies would still have access to criminal records to make intelligent decisions in future investigations, however the general public would not have access.
The Order for Limited Access would be limited to criminal proceedings where at least three years have elapsed from the arrest date, and there are no pending proceedings seeking a conviction. In addition, the District Attorney would have an opportunity to contest any petitions made for limiting access.
There are restrictions to which crimes can be petitioned for limiting access: firearm crimes, simple assault, impersonating a public servant, and intimidating a witness to name a few cannot be limited due to the ethical implications of the crimes. The bill has been seen overall as a step forward in the national criminal justice reform discourse.
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