The House Courts and Criminal Code Committee heard SB 47 on expungement issues sponsored by Rep. J. Young. The bill provides:
- if a court reduces a Class D or Level 6 felony to a misdemeanor, the five-year waiting period for expungement begins on the date of the felony conviction and not on the date the felony was converted to a misdemeanor;
- a procedure for the automatic expungement of a petition for a protection order if the petition was denied, and conforms the automatic expungement provisions to existing civil protection order expungement provisions;
- companies that provide background checks to periodically review their records and remove records relating to expunged protection orders in the same manner asexpunged convictions are removed;
- if a person whose records have been expunged seeks employment with a law enforcement agency, the law enforcement agency may inquire about the person’s expunged records and refuse to employ the person;
- the procedure to expunge records of a collateral action entered in a different county than the county which issued the expungement order.
The bill was amended to remove the protection order petition expungement language, include citations to the alternate misdemeanor sentencing statutes, and allow that people being hired for probation or community corrections can be asked about expunged records.
Testimony in favor of the amended bill was heard by Probation Officers Professional Association of Indiana, Indiana Sheriffs’ Association, Indiana Public Defender Council, and Clark County Judge Vicki Carmichael, on behalf of Indiana Judges Association.
The amended bill passed 9-1.
Read the bill at: http://iga.in.gov/legislative/2020/bills/senate/47