 And for the record, my name is Jeffrey Wallin, and I am the director of the Vermont Crime Information Center with the Department of Public Safety. And what I want to do today is provide a little bit of information and then really answer any questions, particularly from a technical or operational perspective about how expungements work at the criminal history record level. That's really what I want to be able to hopefully do today and answer any questions. Then, if the commissioner when he joins us if there's any additional perspective I can provide then as well. In preparation for today's testimony, I did a bit of research just very quickly with regards to the volume of expungements and ceilings that we've seen over the last few years and thought that might be instructive to the committee today. In 2018 for the year, we've processed 2,503 expungements and ceilings for the year in VCIC for the year 2018, which averaged out to approximately 208 per month. Two years later in 2020, we processed 14,739 for an average of 1228 per month, and that is with the disruptions that the coronavirus caused last year. So far this year in 2021 through March, we've processed 3,401 with an average of 1134 per month. So you can see even in a short period of time just from 2018 to 2021, we've seen a significant increase in the number of expungements and ceilings that we're processing every month through this process. So I thought that might be instructive just to get a sense of scale for the committee members to see what we're seeing in VCIC and what we're working and processing on. We have one staff member who's dedicated to that, and then a few other staff that are working overtime on a federal grant to keep that up. So it's we're definitely doing it by the shoestrings to some degree. And in terms of qualifying offenses, can you, you know, is there a pattern or there's some more than others. Yeah, that's a great question representative and I would say, I don't have a breakdown of, are they misdemeanors versus felonies versus drug crimes versus other types of crimes. In talking with staff what we are seeing is an awful lot of cases that were deferred or dismissed that are now being formally expunged or removed from the record entirely that has generated a lot of this volume. So we didn't see that nearly as much in the past, those were allowed to stay as they have been. But that's probably one of the biggest single things that we can point you to say these deferreds and dismissed are being really aggressively expunged where they weren't necessarily even a few years ago, being handled in the same. Yeah, I was I was wondering about for instance, things that are no longer crimes or cannabis or, or things like that were. That was part of it. Okay. Thank you. Tom. Hey Jeff, how you doing. So, you've got some federal money you said to help with the expungement. We do get a small amount of federal money to keep our criminal history records current. Obviously that comes into play for a number of things to making sure if our records are current that means when agencies around the country access them, and also here in Vermont it provides better data which just works to everyone's advantage, whether it be for a criminal case or for firearms, or for firearm determination, etc. That is useful so we do get a small amount of federal money every year that we're able to pay some of our staffs and overtime to keep working on these expungements. So that's that's pretty much an ongoing year to year thing. Since since you've been involved. Yes, sir, over the last decade that's been something that we've been we've not had to leverage it quite the same way in the past because our numbers have been have been lower but that's what we're leveraging those funds for right okay and and I guess. How far behind are you, if you are as far as getting the expungements done. That's a great question, great question, we typically process them our goal is to have them from when we receive them from the court. Which sometimes it happens the same day other times there can be a little bit of a lag when the court sends them over to us. We have we strive to have those process within 30 days. And we typically do quicker than that, but given that volume that I was just describing that's a lot to process even in a month to go through you know, 11 to 1200 expungements in a month so we're right now right around 30 days from when we receive it. Okay, okay so you're you're at your limit. Yes, as far as your and I don't remember was it in statute to have it done at 30 days or that's a timeframe that that you folks had set or where did the 30 days come from. As far as I'm aware that's an internal goal for us recognizing the importance of these. The number of things that flow from so we want to get them and treat them with a priority as best we can. So that's a metric and a benchmark that we set for ourselves. Right. And, all right. That's all I have right now thank you. Thank you sir. Barbara. Hello. I'm so I don't know if this question is one that makes sense but what's the. Do you know how many files you have of crimes, like, what's the, your universe for these expungements. Because it'd be interesting to see like, are these 1% of the files that yeah. And that's a great question representative and I don't candidly I don't have a real good answer off the top of my head for that because there's so many different ways to slice this. I often get asked how many Vermonters have to have a criminal history record. And unfortunately because we don't have a list of Vermonters I can't give you a definitive answer, you know on that. We also have folks that were convicted here in Vermont that have moved out of state that don't live here anymore and vice versa so it's, it's, it's a great question. You know it's not, it's not one that I can give a simple answer to but I will. And I'm just chatting with Karen Gannett from the crime research group because they do more of that, that analysis and research to see what type of information they might have or what we collaborate on to try to give some sense of what is the sense of scale here. And even I'm not sure I even care about it being broken down it's just hard to know how, like, at some point it seems like we're going to not have that many more people to expand. There aren't that many people who commit the really serious, you know, the top 10 offenses so like again you wouldn't know like, even if it's like hundreds of thousands or like, we, I will say representative we had looked. I think they did this number in a little while so it might be a little bit stale but I think it gives a sense of scale, based on your question, right. At one point we had over 230,000 individuals in our criminal history files, which went back to the beginning of time, you know essentially so back to the, some of them go back to the 20s and 30s those are unusual but the 70s and 80s is when you really see records that you can't take that number and divide by the number of reminders as many of those individuals, unfortunately have deceased they no longer live here, etc, etc. You know, so one of them may have come from out from another state here and has an interaction with law enforcement so they were arrested or fingerprinted. But that is one number just to get the sense of scale of how many individuals we have roughly in our criminal history database. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you keep going. I'm not seeing any other. Oh, I'm sorry I can. Good afternoon Jeffrey. So, what I just heard we still have a tremendous amount of experiments that are still coming our way right. So, with us doing all this, like I've always, and I never thought we charged enough to people that can afford this. Um, is this adding a lot of money to the taxpayers of Vermont right now. As far as like are you are you requiring about like court fees that folks have to file for this or have we added people to go and do this job. Nothing no we have not added any new staff to process this work so. But then again if we didn't add that means we probably had too many we could have done away with somebody. Well I would say to your question representative we've we've we've had a little bit candidly a little bit of luck here. When I came here almost 11 years ago many of our records were paper, we literally got stacks of dispositions or convictions or non convictions in the mail on green bar, you know the wide green bar paper that we all remember for those printers. Since that time we've moved a lot of our process to electronic so our communications with the courts are much more electronic than they used to be that we don't have people manually re typing data, the way we used to so fortunately as we've seen these start to increase, we've been able to streamline some of our processes more efficiently. We've had 30 days down much to much below that, but we're not able to do that obviously with that that we have so. So, so just, I see the commissioners here, just to be clear, I'm okay with with some spot expungement and I do think it adds to the workforce and there's a lot of good to it but I, the cost, the cost and what we're getting is always a concern with me so I'll just hold off right now thank you sir. Thank you. Okay, I see Tom and barbers hands I'm not sure they're from before. Okay, they were. Okay, go ahead, go ahead Jeff. No I think I think that that really summarizes the commission that I had available and I would certainly defer of course to the commissioner if he has any more policy driven things to share at the committee or any questions that I can answer as he as he discusses or provides information so thank you to the committee for the time and for those of you I haven't seen in a while nice to see some friendly faces thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much and good to see you. Welcome. Thanks for having me have apologies for the delay madam chair I was in Senate government operations and ran a little long. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner public safety. I think Jeff is best suited to talk with you about the technical components of how expungements are done. I asked to testify today just to briefly get on the record to kind of urge a sort of a global look at this. I want to share these concerns having chatted with them over the months and years. The system has become increasingly complicated and fragmented relative to expungements and seals. And what's covered and what's not covered. So I just wanted to touch base briefly and really talk more conceptually and sort of at a high level high policy level to suggest that it would be incredibly helpful for I think all of us in the criminal justice system to take a comprehensive look at this and try to combine the system to the greatest extent possible. And I would offer that the goals that have been enumerated over the years are, I believe the right ones trying to ensure that people aren't dogged with criminal convictions over the long term that they don't impact their employment opportunities when it's not appropriate to impact their employment opportunities, etc. But the, the, some of our other public policy goals are now crashing into expungements in particular. And some of the judgments are happening with such speed that we're within the civil statute of limitations. There are other legal proceedings and other things happening that make it difficult to respond to when a record has been eradicated. And this is people who are former defendants whose records have been expunged if they don't have a copy of that. In the 21st century, finding a digital trail that someone was involved in something is pretty easy to do, especially if that thing is substantive. Unfortunately, if a record's been expunged, that may be the only record of something that's found, and a person or a government agency doesn't have the ability to go back and under controlled circumstances, get an official copy of whatever it was that occurred so they can use it. In some cases in their own defense to clear their name from something that may have been blown up in the media or taken on its own life on social media. If that's the only record of something that's problematic. So what I'm, that's a long introduction to stating what I think is a better policy construct. The concept of simply eradicating the record of something an expungement, I believe is not a great piece of public policy, just eliminating the record, because it's eliminating the record of government action. And as I said, it's also eliminating a record that a person may actually have a need to access in the future. So I'm here to advocate for is to a simplify the system. We stop the practice of expunging records in totality, but seal records, and perhaps even explore expanding the circumstances under which a record could be sealed, and then also come up with a construct or a rubric for those records to be unsealed, either if a court needs them for something, if they're needed for litigation, or if a prior defendant actually needs that record to be unsealed make a motion to the court so that they can get a copy of it so they can use it to defend themselves against misinformation or components of information, fragments of information that may be out there about something that they need to clear up with another party. That's, that would alleviate a variety of the issues that we're running into on now an increasingly frequent basis, relative to what we do with expungements themselves. So what I've described to you is sort of an oversimplification of the concept but to reiterate, potentially widen the lane for what could be sealed, give people more options, but move away from the practice of just basically destroying records that's just not a great idea for a myriad of reasons. Thank you, thank you Commissioner. I see Tom's hand go ahead Tom. Thank you. How you doing commissioner. So, did you say that when, when you have records to expunge your seal there's a timeline involved. Well it's very there are a variety of different timelines and because there are so many different avenues for expungement and seal now they're very difficult to navigate so if you're going to ask me a technical question I'm not going to be able to answer it because it's too No, no, no, just general, just a general question just where I'm going is, is, I'm assuming that you're bumping up against these timelines in some aspects were wherever it may be. Like, like I said we don't need to get detailed. And so, if we add more expungements and don't make things simpler. Are you are you going to start exceeding those timelines and is there ramifications for that. Potentially, and Jeff would be better suited to give you the operational impact and whether we're, we're going to miss deadlines based on the, the volume of work. What I'm suggesting is a pivot to a system where we just seal off the, the record that the person was involved in a particular event so let me give you an example. Here's my self as the example Mike Shirley gets arrested for disorderly conduct, and gets convicted, and then that record now is ordered expunged. What we do is actually, or what many agencies do is is just that record, then complete gets completely destroyed. It's often happening within the civil statute of limitations for someone to for the arrest for me to sue the arresting agency for excessive force for example. So, the record is eradicated. There's still the potential for legal proceedings. And there's no way for me as the plaintiff to access the record so that I can bring my civil suit when I'm suggesting is sealed the record. Make it so I have the statute say if I'm asked I don't have to say that I was arrested for disorderly conduct it's it's a record that's sealed under this particular subsection so I can lawfully say I don't have a record. I wouldn't say the option to petition the court, or I would also suggest there are instances where the court may want to unseal a record based on whatever rubric you develop for records to be unsealed I'm not going to try to hypothesize what all of them might be. But let's say there's five different reasons that you make a showing to the court to unseal the record. That's kind of the, the general outline that I think would be a better approach to a getting these records out of the way for people, but be making sure that they're still accessible either to the person impacted, or in other rare instances to for the court to be able to reference for some other reason whether it's litigation or, you know, we're expunging records of fairly substantive events now. It would be interesting to explore a seal that is dependent only on the person not having no recidivism in that particular category so for example if you're going to seal or what we currently call expunge and aggravated assault conviction, it's contingent upon you not having a probable cause finding for another aggravated assault. If you go and do another one, that should be reason for the prosecutor to be able to petition to have the prior record unsealed and used against you in a future sentencing. Yeah, my main concern is, I mean, right now, you know, from what I'm hearing is, you know, we've got it we've got a gallon can that's full right now and we're trying to jam another court into it. And, and to, and I don't I don't know what the cure is I mean I've been a fan of expungement right along and probably always will be it's just this the way I feel about it but at some point. And I think we're there was we're overloading the system as far as getting this, getting the, you know, the paperwork or the process or whatever you want to call it done. And, and sometimes to use your analogy sir, we could probably fit more in the can if we had a better funnel. So if we improve the system if we simplify the system using the suggestions that I've made or there's probably 100 other ways to do it. If we simplify the system we can have more throughput and we can fill the can faster. Yeah, and empty it, empty it faster. But I know where you're going I know what you mean. So, alright, great thank you. But I should be clear, you know these instances where a sealed record would have to be unsealed are probably pretty rare, but they're incredibly impactful when they're needed. But I've only been a public safety for what 19 months or so 20 months feels like forever with COVID, but there have been a few instances that have come by where there are expunged records and it's a head scratcher where there are other legal matters that were involved in and the, the, the records been expunged. Thank you, Martin. Thank you, Mr. You make you make a lot of good points. So, so I've, you know, I've been, I've had some of the same concerns that you're expressing today and I've always gone towards the balance of wanting to clear individuals records and that's just kind of been the way we've been doing expungement and as far as records being ultimately deleted. I mean we've been going down this road now for several years and, and I've constantly tried to raise some questions about whether sealing is just is sufficient and, and did when I was part of the Sentencing Commission's subcommittee that looked at expungements and didn't agree with everything that the committee went or that subcommittee did but ultimately that's where they headed. And really I think it's important to clear individuals records but I think it does. I think we do need to keep on looking at whether sealing is sufficient. And that does take a lot of burden off the courts. It does preserve the records for for future uses that however narrow those could be. And, and it would allow us to proceed with individuals being able to say they don't have a record because they still have the ability to say that so I, but there's still been pushed back a lot as far as no we want to see the records deleted. I don't necessarily agree with that. As far as a simplifying component. I know that you're, I think on the Sentencing Commission, but haven't, haven't been on the subcommittee looking at the whole re categorization of the criminal code. And, and I've mentioned that to the subcommittee on expungement and they recognize this as well that we do have a path for simplifying us. To simplify the criminal code with the different categories of crimes. There can be a relatively straightforward expungement associated with the different categories, you know, class a through E crimes for misdemeanors and maybe also on felonies class D and E, any event there's a there's a way for that, I think, but there is a question coming here I guess I wouldn't mind you commenting on, on how or if you've thought about how this what you're thinking would fit into this restructuring of the criminal code so that's that's one question I have but the other one is just if you have any in the shorter term because that's obviously a little longer term. I'm hoping by the next, by the end of next session we actually will have that in place but that depends a lot on our sister body down the virtual stairs. The other question I would have and I'll just throw both those questions out for you is in the short term if you actually have any suggestions or if you have any folks who have, you know, the detailed suggestions of what could be done with the bill that we have now before us to address those issues you've just raised. So, thanks for both the commentary and the question, working backwards, don't have specific suggestions on the bill though, we could carve out some time I may be able to make some my participation in the Sentencing Commission has been limited through because we've been immersed in the emergency response, but we now have our assistant general councils been attending for the last couple of months. I'll give to the questions around the, the restructuring the criminal code hadn't contemplated this in relation to that but I think your observation is correct sir that it would make it relatively streamlined process to set up as the parameters under which the rules could occur or the types of offenses that could be sealed. As a, as an outgrowth of that. The, and then the other half of that question I think was is there is there an approach. Now, and I would sort of use the same construct that is contemplated with the application of offenses that's the Sentencing Commission is working on, and I think one of the advantages of the, the idea of moving to seals from expungement is you could actually allow for more records to get sealed, because the some of the ancillary records around them being foundational to future, you know, significant prosecutions could be obviated because if the court has the ability to if they're conditional seals based on no reoffense for a similar kind of thing. You, there's, there's no downside risk to the state, and to the public if it can be used in a future prosecution if there's a reoffense. If there's a huge advantage to the defendant if it's their only aggravated assault conviction for example, getting that to go away, or get out of public view quicker. So, you know, I think it would be relatively easy if we were to to to pivot the attention to something like what I've described to carve out the array of offenses that are subject to ceiling and on what timelines. I think the more nuanced and potentially harder needle to thread because there'll be more voices with ideas on how to do it is under what circumstances, a seal could be lifted. Thank you. Thank you, Barbara. Thank you, Commissioner. So, I'm detecting that you're not the biggest fan of expungement for a few reasons. And it seems like your suggestion of ceiling is very different than expungement because I think our goal is to wipe out the persons like give the person that fresh start so yeah it would show up a few years later in court and I mean that's one of the policy issues I think the legislature has to grapple with. But those sealed records could could be subpoenaed or turned over in ways that an expunge record couldn't so I mean perhaps the person whose record is being expunged could get a certificate that they could use if they have to show what I think we heard the military sometimes needs to know that it that it was cleared. But like so many states are expunging and have worked it out and I have not seen the data go up on crime. So, so I think we at least I was envisioning expungement is they have paid their debt to society, and we are prepared to wipe the slate clean for them. And he was just reading that in some cases the major companies that do background checks for most employers, don't use really updated databases and so at times they're telling somebody that somebody has a record. And this other state was saying then you've got to take action under the fair. And then you've got to take credit rating laws so as it is I worry about you mentioned social media and you know how that gets out there but I, but I think really ceiling is a different beast, and, and we have to imagine that we're going the ceiling route. We can't say it's really expungement but it's sealed. Right, it's different. In some states, what we call expungement, what they call expungement is what we call a seal. So when you look state to state, I think it's important to look at the nuances of how they execute their policy. I don't have a list offhand of who does which and how. And I think my sense of the policy goals are the same as yours representative I do think there are many instances where people's missteps should be in the rearview mirror permanently. But I do think there's a way to do that, using a seal of some sort and and you know you can define exactly what that means. In other words, it is, you're actually eradicating their name from the record itself but you're keeping the record, but then there is, you know, we do this with data, sometimes there's a pointer to Barbara Rachel's record that can be unlocked by the court so they know that this back pattern and this affidavit and this case file goes with that in the event that either you needed it, or under whatever other circumstances the legislature to allow something to be unsealed and maybe for many things, you know, misdemeanor drug possession disorderly conduct is probably a bad example, driving was suspended license. Those are all things that may they just they can't be unsealed there's, there's very little reason to ever go back and unseal them. Other than if the defendant needed them for something or needed, they were needed for some other litigation that the court needed to look at them. So, I think some of it's semantic, but I think your policy goal is is aligned with ours that you know we don't want people to be dogged with, especially low level things in perpetuity. Thanks. Ken. I think what I'm hearing is we're having a situation where we had expungement with some people and they're reoffending again. And we can't fall back on previous charges to do more. So basically reoffending is what I'm saying. That's, that's one piece of my concern. I wouldn't overstate that I don't think that's happening with, with tremendous frequency, but there could be low numbers of high impact instances of that that would be important to, I think, and to be able to pierce that veil of seal pierce the seal records versus expungement. Right now there is no way to pierce an expungement. Once it's expunged, it's gone. And my larger concerns are other legal proceedings where you don't have access to it. And an increasing number of instances where we're, we're coming across people in background investigations for people want a copy of something and it doesn't exist anymore. Okay, I'm not experienced enough in this to know like, like, can you give me, for instance, or is that yes. A law enforcement organization in Vermont was doing a background investigation on an executive level person from out of state. This is it's an out of state example but it is on on target. The Internet search has found a number of things more than one thing that indicated that there were case files that would shed light on the person's character. Those case files were inaccessible because they had been expunged. And as a result, we're unable to actually clear the person of character flaws that might have otherwise allowed them to be hired into a job. What you're saying is we should be thinking about doing a lot more sealing less expungement in case it's ever needed in the future for better public safety. That's exactly right. I mean, and I'm going to use two examples that well one has actually happened and one hasn't yet but you know the two things that are at the top of mind for law enforcement right now are bias free policing and use force and right now, we could have an instance where force was used, or a either we want to be able to unpack something that's statistically significant because we're dealing with a person of color, or the agency is accused of doing something that is, is out of bounds, and the record in either one of those instances may be expunged and unable to be used to better illuminate the propriety of use of force or, or bias free policing, or something else in or just our ability to analyze those things as we're unpacking them because that record is no longer exists. It's I mean put fundamentally, we're crashing together to sort of top level policy goals. One is we want people to be able to get out from under criminal convictions but the other is government transparency. We're eradicating the record of government action. I'm not arguing against the ability to eradicate the record that you interacted with Mike Shirley in that disorderly conduct on April 13, 2021, but we're simultaneously getting rid of a record of what the government did. That is just strikes me as not a great idea in the 21st century. So it, it seems like what we, I don't think it's that complicated. It's complicated. Now in my thinking because it's coming at me, but I'm not surprised I'm hearing this, but it shouldn't be that hard to make adjustments. So it's better. I'm going to use a word policing, but it's a better course of action because I can't think of the word for everybody for better protection for all, and also give people another chance at having a new start in life. I think executed properly it can achieve all of those goals and as I indicated earlier, I think if a move to the type of system that I'm describing would actually allow a wider and faster lane for more people to get their record sealed. Yes. I hear you. Thank you sir. Barbara I'm going to assume your hands. Sorry. That's okay. Not seeing any other hands. Folks a minute. Okay, well, thank you commissioner for your testimony. It certainly would be helpful to, to highlight where in the bill you'd make changes what type of amendments you would be looking for. So something concrete that that we could respond to. So, we will take a look at that I appreciate you indulging the sort of broader policy conversation in the bill, direct bill testimony. Thank you. I do see Kate's hand up. Go ahead, Kate. Thanks yeah just reflecting on on your thoughts I guess I'm curious and my understanding is that with ceiling. Information is no longer accessible to the public but it is accessible within the court system. And so I guess my first question is I'm curious. My concern would be if we are talking about hypothetically turning more towards ceiling versus expungement. So the mercy of the court system having access to information that could then be used to impact sentencing or other issues like that and so I'm curious I guess first. If you're advocating for this type of expansion, how would you advocate addressing that issue so that we aren't continuing to exacerbate inequities within the court system. I think the concept is that there could be multiple levels of ceiling. So there are a sealed record could be similar to a current sealed record where the court can see it for a period of time. A second level seal would be. It's sealed it's there, but the the virtual file folder can't be opened unless one of whatever the criteria you set exist petition by the defendant. Like offense probable cause is found for certain types of offenses again for the more serious things not for the low level types of offenses. And things that nature so just sort of laying out exactly what you're describing under what circumstances is it sealed but visible in other circumstances is it sealed not visible and can only be opened under whatever the conditions that are set in statute say. Thanks. And I guess the other comment or question I think some of the examples you're using as to why we might want to consider ceiling over expungement seem to be framing it as supporting folks who have been charged in the past so like providing greater transparency providing their access to their own records so that if they wanted or needed to they could hold government accountable sort of framing it as though this kind of move is really for the betterment of the folks who historically have been most impacted by the criminal justice system and I guess I just find it interesting that, or maybe curious that I'm not hearing activists or advocates advocate for this. You know that I'm hearing you advocate for it from the Department of Public Safety and so again I don't know if I was just a comment or a question I feel like if this obviously is the sort of thing we were going to pursue I would hope and imagine we would also be seeking input from folks who are most impacted by policies like this. So I guess maybe in a question around that is, you're sort of naming these hypothetical situations of people who might be better served through ceiling. Is there, is this just anecdotal like is there evidence to suggest that this is an actual problem that's arising or where's it coming from. So, almost all of the examples I've given you are real world examples that I've experienced since I've been at public safety, and I'm not familiar with all of the public records requests that come in so it's only a cross section. These are not nothing I'm describing is going to be high frequency, but all of them could potentially be high impact they could be things where people are going for jobs they could be again, they're often going to intersect the legal system in one form or another. As the other thing, the other example I gave and I probably wasn't. I know I wasn't particularly detailed about it, but as we're doing qualitative analysis of either use of force or bias free policing. There's an advantage to being able to go into that particular record and see the details of what happened so that we can better understand how to improve operations so from an operational government. So, as we're doing a let's say a three year retrospective on use of force, people of color, that would be a total of about 60 events over a three year period. We're fortunate in Vermont that we could actually read each one of them. But if it's sealed. We lose a cross section of those events that were able to review and try to come up with policy alterations and in areas for improvement. And I want to overstate it. These are low frequency things, but they are impactful things. Thank you. Coach, and then Martin. Commissioner, how are you doing. I'm doing well sir I left you a voicemail this morning. Yeah, I saw that you and about 20 other people but that's okay. We are working on it. A question that comes to mind. Thinking about, you know, all of the potential options. Does anybody have an idea on what the statute of limitation is, you know, in a situation where, let's say, a defendant. Or her record is expunged. And then along the way something else occurs and access to that record might result in a civil suit regarding like a defamation or not being able to get, you know, that job. Because someone bought up the case, even though the records were expunged, they might have found information from another source, you know, let's say, you know, the newspapers or some are other archival data. Knowing that the actual court record or legal documents are the truly verifiable docs. So the question is the statute of limitation. On the civil side of things. I would like this with legislative counsel and other attorneys because I am not one but three years for the majority of things, and there are some things that are seven years, although you're contemplating that you've already passed, removing civil statutes of limitations for accountability on, for example, sex crime, which actually brings up another, again, rare, incredibly rare but potentially significantly impactful reason to not eradicate a record. And it is not uncommon in major cases, especially ones that are old to have old records have a notable impact on an investigation and potentially on a civil case, one for which there wasn't a statute of limitations so for example that that is the only conduct I've used as the hypothetical. That event could conceivably be a placeholder or a fragment of information in a larger course of conduct larger intersection of a relationship with someone that someone decides to bring a civil action 20 years from now. And that placeholder is now gone and that record of that interaction is now gone, because there's no way to pierce the veil of expungement because there isn't one. So again it's, it's not going to happen every day, it might happen once a year might happen once a decade, but it's another reason not to have a public policy where we eradicate records. And I guess the other the other follow up question is, does anyone, and I know you've been looking at a lot of modernization functionalities within DSP. What is that the cloud access cost, you know, for, you know, some of these extended sizes of files. You know, we pay in the hundreds of thousands low hundreds of thousands of dollars a year for video storage across the entire footprint of the state police which is a lot of video on a rolling basis. So it's not, it might sound like a lot of money but it's not particularly expensive and it's coming down and relative to cloud storage for our, and that's the most expensive version. For our records databases, you know, they're, they're terabytes and growing and it's not a significant expense. Thank you. And I'll be in touch. Thanks. Martin. Yeah, so here's my question so they're, there are a number of crimes that are not expungible point. They're violent crimes or crimes against people. I guess the question for you and I'm not looking for you to answer it immediately. But if we went to a ceiling to a situation where we're doing ceiling as opposed to actually destroying the records. The administration is DPS open to expanding the ability to seal records for some of these violent crimes. You know, it may, it may be, you know, these are some crimes that might have 1015 20 year sentences. I mean, these are very serious crimes but of course, after the person who commits such a crime in the early 20s and serves 10 or 15 years and is in their mid 30s, they are still bound to that criminal record for years, decades. So to allow somebody in that situation, maybe it's, maybe it's a long period of time between the end of the sentence to being sealable. But would, would there be a willingness to say, all right, well, if we're doing it, where we're sealing where we can get back to that document if 40 years later this person commits another violent offense we can look at it for sentencing purposes. And is, is that somewhere where the administration would go. I think the answer is yes, conditional on the kinds of things that you mentioned like what's the timeframe and you know what's the totality of circumstances at a single offense or was this a course of conduct that went on for a long period of time. But yeah, the answer is yes. No, I was in part ingest, but it's actually true. The two biggest indicators of crime are the age of people and in the weather, the hotter weather molecules move faster, more violent crime tends to happen. So it in the instance that you described you know somebody does something significant they are they serve a lengthy sentence and then now they go a few years and they're not on the radar at all they're just they're they're they're a fully functioning member of society, they should be able to get that record seal. Because I see that as one of the major selling points for going to a ceiling situation because in my dealing with this for the last five, six years. There's been absolutely no way are we going to go to a point where we are these, you know, expunging some of these violent crimes. Yeah, I think most sex crimes are going to be a little bit of a challenge because of the nature of offenses on the property crime side. You know the one that stands out is investment, because it tends to be a repetitive offense. And you want people to be able to make conscious hiring decisions and not put someone in a position where they're set themselves up for failure in the future. But I think they're more the exception than the rule if people actually rehabilitate themselves in the vast majority of circumstances they ought to have the ability to have a shot at a seal. Right. And I mean this is it's a tough conversation I mean we're, we're talking about the easy ones perhaps and these are not at all easy stocking domestic assault. Well, if somebody is in prison for stalking or domestic assault for five 10 years, should they have the rest of their life, the, the other obstacles that a criminal record presents, or should they have some ability to stay clean or be good for 10 years or and then have the document sealed, although it's still there. If something comes up down the road. So I'm sorry that I'm preaching right there instead of asking you a question I apologize but I think it's a it's a good point and so those kinds of offenses, sexual violence offenses have a different offender profile and a different type of motivation behind what causes those cycles of violence. So it's just going to be important to keep those in mind as we try to create the roadmap to how to get one of those records field it'll just have to be done. And just to entertain that and have to be done cautiously so we don't inadvertently create a chain of additional victimization. Right, right. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thank you very much is helpful in terms of considering this bill and path forward. Thank you. Okay, so we're over time but we do have the Attorney General's office here so I would like to hear from David share please. Sure thank you madam chair and I'll try to be fairly quick I wanted to make four points. I was a couple responsive to actually the Department of Corrections points last week and then some that I think are just more have been generally discussed throughout the testimony that I hope all four will be helpful to the committee as you consider the bills and the issues it presents. One of the points that was discussed last week was the potential for offenses to be expunged while somebody is under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. In other words, some other offense not the one that they're under supervision for gets expunged. And that then could change their operations change the way they are able to assess risk deal with somebody who's under their supervision and so forth. I want to emphasize that the bill is constructed to prevent that for the most part when you read through the provisions of the bill it does say that you know the expungement can only happen if the sentence being served for a subsequent offense is already completed. So somebody should or is required really to be out of the supervision of the Department of Corrections before the expungement can occur. I will acknowledge that it is possible for this to happen. One of the ways that it is possible for it to happen is if the respond and either the state's attorney or the Attorney General's office decides to wave the time period for the expungement and so that does mean that the effect of that could be that somebody ends up getting the expungement before the expungement is still under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. I'd say a couple things to that. One, I'll acknowledge it sounds like the Department of Corrections did have a specific case they were thinking about when they made that statement. I don't know that case particularly. I do think that that's a very unusual circumstance. It's certainly our practice and I think it's most office's practices when they're looking at expungements to see if somebody is still under the supervision of the Attorney General. Certainly we do wave the timelines, but we also we also always check and that would be a reason not to wave a timeline in a particular case for our office, but it could happen. I'm not suggesting I'm not necessarily a proponent of this suggestion, but if it is a concern for the committee or if the committee feels like this is an issue that would be good to have addressed before moving the bill further for whatever reason. You know, it could actually be a fairly simple legal fix to sort of take that problem off the table. And that would simply be to say that notwithstanding any other provision of the expungement statutes. The legal offense will be expunged if somebody is currently under the supervision of the Department of Corrections. That would still allow the timelines to be waived in many cases, you know, somebody has been good no further offenses. States Attorney Attorney General can wave the timeline. It could be a simple but it would mean that that won't that problem would not exist anymore. And I, and I also, again, for the same reason that I don't think this is happening very often I think this is unusual. In part because the legal construct prevents it from happening in most cases. And that's a solution that would sort of take that problem off the table without actually affecting that many cases so just wanted to, as we're thinking through the problems wanted to present that as a possible solution. And another point that I wanted to discuss briefly is this concern around risk assessments and whether or not do does the practice of expungement. make risk assessment less accurate down the road. And, you know, I think that if you were going to take that argument seriously would be an argument against all expungement ever happening and that's certainly not an argument that I would, or that our office is is one that we would accept or one that we think that this inevitably leads to it's important to remember some of the data that underlies in some of the studies that underlie our you know, proponency of these stab these policy concepts which is that the studies do show that after about seven years or so even for fairly serious offenses and I've already testified to this just as a reminder. The risk of somebody's re offense goes down to that of the general population. So, even if there were to be a risk assessment many years down the road and remember these timelines are not short for especially for the more serious offenses we're talking about the eligibility for expungement doesn't come in for quite a number of years it's the ceiling that happens first. So, it's going to be available anyway, even to the extent that it's not available. So, really our fence, if the risk assessment is accurate should not be really waiting it at all. So, even if it were available that shouldn't be taken into consideration by whatever risk assessment tool is being used because the data shows that that doesn't really contribute to a risk factor after X number of years. So, I think that's an important thing to keep in mind that this notion that prior offenses always are indicators of risk, I think is statistically false. And for that reason, we shouldn't be holding on to them forever, nor should we sort of design around future risk assessments forever. And if that you'd already has fairly long timelines, then those are in place for the exact reason that if something does happen in the future, you can take it into account. But after a while, it's really not indicative of risk and for that reason, the proposal is there to allow for expungement again it's one we have been in favor of and continue to be in favor of. At this point I wanted to talk about I know there's been some discussion in the commissioner talked about this a bit too, just more broadly about how we deal with expungement what is the extent of it. What does it mean exactly how how how much to what extent are the records being completely eliminated. And what is the administrative burden and doing so, and the issue of data retention and so on and so forth. One thing to keep in mind is that this statute as it's proposed opens the door in the short term to a bunch of ceiling. It actually doesn't open the door in the short term to a bunch of expungements. The current regime will stay in place of course and so those expungements are available now and will continue to be available. But in terms of the new crimes that are being that for which the door is being opened. It's only ceiling that it's going to happen initially so. And I should say, and the statute provides for the sentencing commission to really dig down into some of these other issues as we've already discussed around streamlining the process of how we can make it smoother. What is expungement ceiling really going to mean in the future. So I don't think that you are by passing this eliminating or creating eliminating the possibility of reforms that can address some of those things. You know the initial things are only going to be ceiling that happens so the data is still going to be there it's not an irreversible step at least in the short term and and I think it's, it's, but it's also very important step for the people who are going to have that ceiling available to them where they went which it isn't now and one that we do think the legislature should take so just wanted to remind the committee of that that there is actually in some ways not an irrevocable step being taken there's an impinge being granted and so which people should get and some of these other issues I think can be discussed and I actually think that there's some broad agreement coming from a number of angles on ways, or on the fact that there should be some improvements and streamlining being made. The conservation of data issue I think is a valid one it's one of the crime research group has discussed as well, and one that we're happy to think about how to work on I don't actually think it may not even be that complex because the judiciary is already keeping an index and we just have to think about how to anonymize that adequately but again I don't want to go too far into the weeds just to point out that there's some valid points being made here but ones that I don't think this bill sort of irrevocably damages in being able to deal with them as we move forward and the mechanisms already in place in the bill to deal with them. The final piece I just wanted to mention was with respect to resources and burden. It's always been our position that expungements are very important and if we put in resources to convicting people and to sort of pulling people into the criminal system we should also be putting resources to allowing people to escape from consequences for that once they've already paid their debt and have proven to be on a good road and and not not getting involved in any more harmful behaviors. That being said, I also think that you know there will be an increased burden from this, but there also be and I but I also want to emphasize that part of the burden that's being created is by the statutes the legislature has to deal with the covert 19 crisis, which put off the final adjudication of expungements for, I think is 120 days after the end of the executive order. And for that reason our office really does think it's valid and appropriate to use some one time funds from the recovery funds to to deal with the bubble that will very likely come through the system because it's a bubble that has in part been created by the covert crisis and for that reason we think that's appropriate and it should be some, it would be reasonable to dedicate some resources to this, just as resources are being dedicated for all sorts of issues stemming from the crisis. So those are the four points I wanted to make responsive to some of the stuff that's been heard I realized that I talked maybe too quickly, and there's probably a bunch of questions and we're near the end of the day but I'm happy to answer what I can now or come back at a future date and answer some more. Thank you do those those very helpful. Ken. Just to clarify what I think I heard I think you said we pull people into the criminal system. We don't. I'm sorry. Sorry, sorry, finish your question. My apologies. Well, we pulled people in the criminal system I thought people do crimes and they get themselves in the criminal system and then we're trying to work with them to fix their mess up. Certainly if we try to work with them to fix mess ups or to prevent you know prevent further harm or to punish for harm this happened that don't mean to indicate differently, but, but you know it's also I don't want to sit here and say that all the enforcement happens completely evenly. In all situations I think the government does make choices sometimes which affect some people more harshly than others. There are choices being made on the government side as well but of course I think you're right it's true that people make bad choices and we have to respond to that. Thank you. Thanks. Coach I think your hand is, is it up from before do you have a question. Sorry, it was from the other hand. Okay. All right. Well, thank you, David that was helpful. Certainly we need to have some more discussion on this committee. Looking at the hour though. So we will adjourn. For today.