The Senate Corrections and Criminal Law Committee heard SB 343 on various criminal matters authored by Sen. Freeman. The bill provides the following:
- Requires online marketplaces to collect and verify certain information about high-volume, third-party sellers in the marketplaces and provide that information to consumers in the marketplaces.
- Makes it organized retail theft, a Level 6 felony, for a person to knowingly: (1) take, procure, receive, conceal, or otherwise exercise control over merchandise of a retail merchant; or (2) use an artifice, an instrument, a container, a device, or another article to facilitate taking, procuring, receiving, concealing, or exercising control over merchandise of a retail merchant; without the consent of the retail merchant or without paying the appropriate consideration for the merchandise, and with the intent to sell, deliver, or distribute the merchandise to another person, and increases the penalty under certain circumstances.
- Provides that the violation of a community corrections home detention placement term constitutes the crime of escape under certain circumstances.
- Permits a person to petition for expungement of an arrest if no charges have been filed within one year of the arrest. (Under current law, the arrest is expunged without a petition after 180 days.)
- Allows disclosure of expunged records to a school in connection with the employment of a person likely to have contact with a student.
- Repeals the requirement that certain acts taken by a prosecuting attorney are invalid without a seal.
- Revises, for purposes of an enhancement and certain criminal offenses, a definition of “machine gun” to include a particular part or combination of parts designed and intended for use in converting a weapon into a weapon that fires automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.
- Modifies a separate definition of “machine gun”.
The bill was amended by consent to do the following: (1) specify when a law enforcement officer is required to offer a person a breath test; (2) permit the disclosure of an online marketplace to be part of the marketplace’s enrollment flow; (3) define “machine gun” and specify who may legally possess a machine gun; (4) specify good cause for striking a juror during jury selection; (5) allow a school to access expunged records under certain circumstances; (6) add “fondling” to the crime of sexual misconduct with a service provider; and (7) remove from the bill language superseded by SB 179.
The following testified in support of the bill: Kroger, Indiana Retail Council, Meijer, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (on the machine gun section of the bill), and Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council. The Indiana Public Defender Council testified in opposition to the section on retail theft but supports the amendment on when a law enforcement officer is required to offer a person a breath test. The amended bill passed 7-1
Read the bill at: https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2023/bills/senate/343