Access Barriers to Felony Expungement in Utah
Currently, 39 states authorize expungement or sealing of at least some felony convictions.[i] Recent research shows that only a small percentage of eligible individuals actually complete the court petition process required to obtain such relief, which is frequently hard to understand and usually burdensome, costly, and time-consuming.[ii]
Ideally, the most efficient way to overcome these barriers would be to make sealing automatic, dispensing with the requirement of individual application entirely. However, the move toward automatic sealing is still in its early stages, and we anticipate that in many states, at least in the near future, petition-based sealing will remain a primary method for clearing certain records, particularly felony convictions. Accordingly, it is important to identify and minimize barriers to petition-based relief wherever possible. That is the purpose of this project.
In February 2021, we published an analysis of strengths and weakness of the felony record clearance process in Illinois by Beth Johnson and her partners in the Rights and Restoration Law Group (RRLG). We are now pleased to present the second study in this series, a review of Utah’s felony expungement scheme by Noella Sudbury.