Author: Noella Sudbury

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.

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How Utah Got Automatic Expungement

Editor’s note: We are pleased to publish this fascinating account of how one state transformed its record relief system in little more than a year from a standing start, written by a person who had a central role in the transformation.      In March of 2019, Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed HB 431, Utah’s Clean Slate law.  At the time, this made Utah the third state in the nation to pass a law automating the criminal record expungement process.  That law went into effect on May 1, 2020, but due to COVID-19, implementation efforts were delayed.  Several months later, implementation is back on track, and it is now anticipated that Utah’s state agencies will begin clearing court and repository records of non-convictions and qualifying misdemeanor convictions by the end of March. Preliminary estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of people across the state will have their records expunged automatically. What follows is a story about how Utah, one of the reddest states in the nation, came to adopt such a generous and efficient record relief system. As someone who was involved in that process from the beginning, I hope it will be helpful to others seeking to push their […]

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