Rhode Island House Extends Expungement Options

In yet extra prove that the trend towards harsh sentencing and long term sanctions for even minor offenses, the Rhode Island House of government passed a bill to extend expungement options to the disorder’s residents.

Over the vigorous objections of Rhode Island’s attorney general, the disorder police and the governor, the House voted 46 to 17 in favor of a bill to quash and ruin the records of criminal cases where the court handed down a deferred sentence, usually in exchange for the accused by pleading no contest or guilty to their charges and sparing the disorder the expense of a criminal trial.

The bill, to be taken up by the Senate, requires the automatic destruction of all qualified criminal records at the end of the deferral period — which typically lasts five years. These new procedures would apply regardless of the seriousness of the crime or the criminal history of the offender as long as he or she avoided any distress during that deferral period.

Rhode Island’s current law allows for the expungement of a single nonviolent offense from the record of a first-time offender five years after he or she has concluded a sentence for a misdemeanor, or 10 years after completing a sentence for a felony.

In view of the fact that 2000, 28,417 criminal cases were expunged from the public record under the present law’s provisions. In 2006 there were a total of 4,360 misdemeanors and 625 felonies removed from the public record.