New Expungement Law 2019 SENATE No. 4154 makes expungement more available.
New Jersey expungement law signed December 18 will take effect on June 15, 2020.
L. 2019, c.269 will increase the number of records of arrests and convictions that can be expunged.
S4154 creates a petition process for “clean slate” expungement for residents who have not committed an offense in ten years and who have not been convicted of the most serious crimes.
The bill also requires the State to implement an automated clean slate expungement system, which will be developed by a task force charged with studying the technological, fiscal, and practical issues and challenges associated with such a system.
Further, the bill requires that low-level marijuana convictions be sealed upon the disposition of a case, preventing those convictions from being used against those individuals in the future. It also makes numerous other changes to existing expungement procedures, including the creation of an e-filing system that would eliminate filing fees to petition for an expungement.
Contact an expungement attorney now to see if you will be eligible.
The Floor statement notes the new law would:
- provide a period of nine months for the Administrative Office of the Courts to develop and maintain the system described in section 6 of the bill for sealing records from the public, upon order of a court, which pertain to offenses or delinquent acts involving the various marijuana and hashish possession, distribution, and drug paraphernalia offenses eligible for sealing under that section (the nine-month period is calculated as the relevant provisions taking effect 180 days after enactment, plus language stating that the system be developed “no later than three months” after the provisions take effect);
- provide a consistent time period for transitioning from expunging, in a more expedited fashion, those offenses or delinquent acts involving the various marijuana and hashish possession, distribution, and drug paraphernalia offenses eligible for faster expungement, as described above, to the new record sealing system which will address those same offenses once the system begins operating;
- make language pertaining to marijuana and hashish drug paraphernalia offenses that are eligible for expungement or sealing consistent throughout the bill;
- eliminate the 180-day waiting period before the provisions establishing the automated “clean slate” process take effect; although they would now take effect immediately, the automated process would still be subject to development and implementation in the future based on recommendations of the task force created by the bill to support the automated process;
- include references to a person’s criminal history as “criminal history record information” in order to maintain consistency for such references within the expungement statutes and other relevant sections of statutory law dealing with criminal histories;
- provide for the forthcoming e-filing system for expungement applications to serve copies of an expungement petition and all supporting documents upon the Superintendent of State Police, the Attorney General, and the county prosecutor of any county in which the person seeking expungement relief was convicted (the e-filing system would be established within a period of 18 months (calculated as the relevant provisions taking effect 180 days after enactment, plus language stating that the system be developed “no later than twelve months” after the provisions take effect)); and
- require that a court, following the issuance of a court order granting expungement, provide proof of the expungement to the person whose records have been expunged or to that person’s representative.
- Clarify that a person who at any time had a previous criminal conviction expunged is still disqualified from seeking an expungement of additional convictions for crimes, disorderly persons offenses, or petty disorderly persons offenses under the “standard” expungement process set forth in N.J.S.2C: 52-2 and -3, even under the expanded eligibility criteria established by the bill;
- clarify that the term “court-ordered financial assessment” means and includes all forms of financial assessment imposed as part of the sentence for the conviction or convictions for which expungement is sought, or for which expungement or sealing has been granted;
- permit any court, as specified by court rule, to handle expungement petitions under the “standard” expungement process when that petition only involves convictions for disorderly persons or petty disorderly persons offenses, or under the faster expungement process that addresses various marijuana and hashish possession, distribution, and drug paraphernalia offenses set forth in section 5 of the bill;
- eliminate all references to expunging or sealing any charges, both in the current statutory law and new sections set forth in the bill, based upon information provided by the Administrative Office of the Courts indicating that charges are not expungable;
