Minnesota
Restoration of Rights Project – Minnesota Profile
Guide to restoration of rights, pardon, sealing & expungement following a Minnesota criminal conviction
2014 Report by the Council on Crime and Justice
Chained to the Past: An Overview of Criminal Expungement Law in Minnesota —State v. Schultz
Geffen, Jon and Letze, Stefanie, 31 William Mitchell Law Review Iss. 4 (2004-05) (partially superseded; check Minnesota profile, above, for later caselaw and statutory enactments)
Related blog posts:
- Minnesota enacts four major record reforms in 2023 (10/18/2023) - Thanks to a series of criminal-justice reforms enacted earlier this year, Minnesota has burnished its reputation as a national leader in reintegration and criminal record reform. In a year in which there have been far fewer criminal record reforms than in the recent past, Minnesota’s performance stands out for the variety and breadth of relief granted, in many cases automatically. [...]
- Momentum grows to restore voting rights to people with a felony (2/3/2021) - Our new report on 2020 legislative reforms shows continued progress in state efforts to expand voting rights for people with a felony conviction. Despite a courtroom setback at the Eleventh Circuit, where a federal appeals court ruled that Florida’s landmark 2018 felony re-enfranchisement initiative does not restore the vote to people who owe court debt, two additional states and D.C. [...]
- New research report: Four Years of Second Chance Reforms, 2013-2016 (2/8/2017) - Introduction Since 2013, almost every state has taken at least some steps to chip away at the negative effects of a criminal record on an individual’s ability to earn a living, access housing, education and public benefits, and otherwise fully participate in civil society. It has not been an easy task, in part because of the volume and complexity of [...]
- New era for expungement reform? Too soon to tell. (8/3/2016) - A new article in the Harvard Law & Policy Review evaluates some of the recent legislative efforts to deliver relief from the burden of collateral consequences through new or expanded expungement laws. In “A New Era for Expungement Law Reform? Recent Developments at the State and Federal Levels,” Brian Murray argues that many of the newer record-closing laws are far too modest in [...]
- 50-state guide to expungement and sealing laws (1/13/2016) - The 50-state chart of judicial relief mechanisms from the NACDL Restoration of Rights Resource, which is also posted on this site, is a comprehensive survey of all authorities for judicial relief in the states and federal system. We wanted to bring it to our readers’ attention in light of the new federal interest in helping individuals with a criminal record overcome [...]
- Long waits for expungement frustrate public safety purposes (2/18/2015) - Recently, in commenting on a new expungement scheme enacted by the Louisiana legislature, we noted the disconnect between the stated reentry-related purposes of the law and its lengthy eligibility waiting periods. If people have to log many years of law-abiding conduct before they can even apply for this relief, it is not likely to be of much help to people [...]
- Louisiana’s new expungement law: How does it stack up? (1/16/2015) - Louisiana has far and away the largest prison population of any state in the country (847 per 100,000 people — Mississippi is second with 692 per), but until last year there was little that those returning home after serving felony sentences could do to unshackle themselves from their criminal records and the collateral consequences that accompany them. While Louisiana has [...]
- Michigan takes baby steps on criminal justice reform (1/9/2015) - Michigan spends one in five tax dollars on corrections so the state continues to explore strategies to safely reduce these costs. In its most recent session, the legislature considered bold criminal justice reforms, but strenuous last minute objections from the Attorney General succeeded in halting much of the reform agenda. In the end, only a few reforms were implemented and most [...]
- Minnesota’s sweeping new expungement law takes effect (1/1/2015) - Beginning January 1st, 2015, many Minnesotans will have a meaningful shot at a second chance through criminal records expungement. For decades, many individuals have relied upon (and often languished under) a court’s inherent authority to expunge (or seal) criminal records, but recent Minnesota Supreme Court decisions effectively eviscerated that remedy. Without a legislative act expressly granting judicial authority to seal [...]
- How risky is pardoning? Not as risky as committing uninformed journalism (12/15/2014) - An AP story about the perils of pardoning, picked up by newspapers and media outlets across the country, manages to convey three pieces of misinformation in its very first sentence. Riffing off a recent high profile pardon application, it begins like this: “Mark Wahlberg’s plea for a pardon has focused fresh attention on excusing criminal acts – something governors rarely do [...]