Want to sweep your record clean?
Process is complex but can start online
Thousands of people across Pennsylvania have submitted requests to have old criminal records sealed in the two weeks since the state expanded the types of cases that can be removed from public view.
In the weeks since the effective date of the new Clean Slate law, applicants have submitted their information to My Clean Slate, a program created by Community Legal Services of Philadelphia. It connects Pennsylvanians with volunteer lawyers who will screen their records and connect them with legal help to seal certain criminal cases that are 10 years old or older.
“Since the statewide form was launched just a few weeks ago, there have been 4,000 requests [statewide]. I anticipate there will be many more,” said Barbara Griffin, director of the Pro Bono Center of the Allegheny County Bar Foundation, which is participating in the My Clean Slate program. The form is available at https://clsphila.org/mycleanslatepa.
Sealing a record can have far-reaching effects, opening employment and housing opportunities that might have been foreclosed as a result of old criminal cases, said Edward Van Stevenson, a managing attorney for Pittsburgh’s Neighborhood Legal Services who regularly provides free legal aid for people seeking to get their records sealed or expunged.
“Once it’s sealed, if a person is asked, ‘Have you committed any misdemeanors?,’ one can say no,” Mr. Stevenson said. “It’s going to have a great impact on the Pennsylvania community at large.”
The My Clean Slate program, a partnership between CLS and the state bar association, was announced Jan. 2 by Gov. Tom Wolf with the aim of “making it easier to navigate Pennsylvania’s new Clean Slate law,” according to a news release.
The law was passed nearly unanimously and signed by Mr. Wolf in June 2018, and went partially into effect Dec. 26.
Pennsylvania already allowed certain summary offenses, misdemeanors and charges that closed without convictions to be sealed or expunged by petitioning the courts. The new law now in effect expands the types of criminal records that can be sealed. Beginning in 2020, it also mandates automatic sealing of some records, including dropped charges.
Clean Slate made no changes to the rules for expunging, or permanently erasing, records, but it further restricts who can see sealed records.
“Prior to Clean Slate, sealed cases could be seen by state licensing authorities,” Ms. Griffin said. “If you were trying to get your nursing license or cosmetology license, they could see that. Now it’s only law enforcement that can see that, so that opens up opportunities.”
(Sealed cases still can be accessed by law enforcement entities, employers who are required to consider records under federal law, and employers who use FBI background checks.)
The new law “expands the types of misdemeanors that can be sealed. Previously first-degree misdemeanors, which are the most serious type, could not be sealed, but now they can. And simple assaults could not be sealed, when they were second or first degree,” Ms. Griffin said.
Now they can be sealed, too, along with property theft, disorderly conduct and some drug crimes.
The right to have offenses sealed isn’t absolute. In all cases, any court costs need to be completely paid off before the record can be sealed, although a lawyer can ask a judge to waive those costs.
Violent crimes, firearms violations, sex offenses, crimes against the family such as incest and bigamy, and crimes against minors are all exempted, and no one with a major felony conviction can get any records sealed. Sealings are only available after 10 years without another conviction, and the timeline is longer with more numerous or serious convictions.
To get a record sealed, a person, with or without an attorney, files a petition — with a copy of the existing record requested from the state police — with the county department of court records. The district attorney’s office has an opportunity to challenge the petition, and if it does, a hearing is held in front of a criminal court judge. According to Allegheny County lawyers, district attorney challenges have been very rare.
“I’ve been doing expungement five to six years, and have only had to go to one hearing to challenge an objection filed by the DA,” Mr. Stevenson said.
Jamie Gullen, a supervising attorney with Community Legal Services, explained that even commercial background-check services, done by third parties and often used by landlords and employers, have to abide by orders to seal records.
“When a sealing order or expungement order is issued, the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts generates a list of cases that have been expunged or sealed, and sends that to the vendors with which they contract,” Ms. Gullen said.
Commercial backgroundcheck services are bound by the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act to maintain accurate records and update based on expunged or sealed records.
“Occasionally there are issues,” Ms. Gullen said, but “it’s not a huge issue that we see.”
The automatic sealing part of the law does not begin until June 2020, to give state police and the court system time to prepare. Once that goes into effect, all charges that do not result in convictions will be sealed after 60 days, and all summary offenses (the lowest level of crime, including disorderly conduct and trespassing) will be sealed after 10 years as long as any court costs, fees and fines are paid off.
Some low-level misdemeanors will also be automatically sealed after 10 years, but with caveats: The offender must have paid off any financial obligations, and have no other convictions in the interim, and the offender cannot have ever been convicted of a felony, certain misdemeanors or more than one serious misdemeanor.
Anyone seeking to get a record sealed or expunged can call Pittsburgh’s Neighborhood Legal Services at 866-761-6572 during business hours, go to https://palegalaid.net/provider-resources or enter their information at https://clsphila.org/mycleanslatepa.