The House Courts and Criminal Code Committee heard HB 1302, Rep. McMillin’s expungement bill. The bill addresses a number of issues concerning the IC 35-38-9 expungement remedy: (1) it expands the arrest expungement remedy to include criminal charges or delinquency allegations which did not lead to a conviction or adjudication; (2) it specifies that a person seeking to expunge a conviction is not required to pay a filing fee; and (3) it removes the certification requirement for the BMV driving record which must be attached to a conviction expungement petition. Rep. McMillin presented two amendments. The first, suggested by the Hoosier Press Association, would have expungement proceedings be open to the public until an expungement order is issued; the second would remove the requirement of notice to a victim in those cases in which expungement is mandatory if the petitioner establishes the requirements for expungement. Both amendments were adopted by consent.
The Monroe Circuit Court and Tippecanoe Circuit Court clerks both testified about the increased expenses their offices have incurred to process expungement cases and encouraged the committee to not exempt expungement petitioners from paying standard filing fees, but the bill passed 12-0 without further amendment.
Read the bill at http://iga.in.gov/legislative/2015/bills/house/1302.