This week, legislation was introduced in California that would clear the criminal records of approximately 2 million people dating back to 1973 and, in the process, dramatically alter the public records landscape in the state. Last year legislation was passed that requires the state attorney general, beginning on January 1, 2021 and monthly thereafter, to identify records of certain arrests and crimes that are eligible for expungement. The legislation introduced this week, AB 2978, would retroactively apply that law back to 1973, thereby automatically clearing qualified records.
California law currently allows for the expungement of arrest and conviction records for lower-level felonies and misdemeanors, while sex offenders and offenders who served time in prison are not eligible. The types of records eligible for expungement would not change under the proposed law, instead the bill would automate a process that currently requires a petition and sometimes thousands of dollars in attorneys fees. The author of the legislation, Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) attempted to pass the law last year, but it was amended to remove retroactive application.
Under current law, researchers who conduct background searches for employment purposes are already limited in terms of what they can report about job applicants. Those of us who are not in that part of the field but who rely on these types of records in our other work could soon be similarly limited. Stay tuned.