Hello.

I stumbled across your blog and enjoyed perusing the posts.

I’m writing to gauge interest and garner support for people interested in working on legislative changes to Wa. State laws re: public access to past criminal histories.

Please excuse the length.

In Massachusetts, Gov. Deval recently proposed legislation that would near-automatically remove past histories from public databases after 10 years post-conviction with clean conduct (with longer or shoter periods depending upon type of offense and other factors).

I think this is an excellent idea.

Full disclosure: My interest in this issue stems from my longstanding personal hell of not being allowed to remove from public record a nearly 17 year-old suspended sentence on a gross misdemeanor (attempted theft) and a misdemeanor conviction for a public protest from this same time frame.

Since the advent of the court’s publication of my long-past record into an internet-accessible database, I’ve been refused jobs, fired from jobs, publicly humiliated and been denied rental housing because of this–over and over and over again.

You guys have probably thought about this issue already, but here’s what I think is wrong with our current system and needs to be changed:

1. There are no time limits on court publication of information. To anybody viewing the criminal history info, it’s always perpetually “fresh” regardless of actual time passed.

2. The court allows free access with no tracking of who is accessing the info and for what purpose.

3. Duplicative systems. People no longer need to go via the WSP (and pay) to get criminal history info–they can get it for free over the internet via Wa. Courts.

4. Coding of misdemeanors is far too broad. My public protest arrest is coded as a “criminal non-traffic” which could mean anything (public peeing, drink and disorderly, exposure, shoplifting, etc.)

5. Even if a conviction is “vacated” and removed from the WSP background check report, all of the info is available via the Court’s website, along with a “helpful” notation that the matter was “vacated.” This, of course, does nothing to remove stigma or prevent access to one’s criminal history.

6. For sealing, it’s the same as #5 above, except the helpful notation is “sealed” instead of “vacated.”

Just the simple fact that a person’a name is listed along with a criminal charge, in a criminal database, allows stimga to permanently perpetuate.

Adding notations per the current system may well increae the stigma (especially the “sealed” notation), because the viewer will not be allowed access to the details, and could easily assume the worst, and also (fairly) presume that the person they are investigating is trying to prevent their past criminal conduct from being fully viewed by the public.

7. The system doesn’t allow for expungement of duplicative entries on transferred cases. In my situation, my case was initially filed in District Court, and was later transferred to Superior Court.

So there are two listings showing two different “filing/violation dates” but it’s the same exact crime. Viewers gets the wrong impression that I have had three criminal charges instead of just two.

8. I see no reaons why vacations and/or sealings are limited to only one attempt or one case.

There’s no reason why a single misdemeanor arrest from almost two decades ago that is far too broadly coded to be helpful in judging current “character” needs to be part of mine or anyone’s “permanent” public record.

9. There is no consistency with name docketing. I have a highly unique name and am fairly confident that at most only a handful of Americans share my name.

In my situation, the Clerk’s office docketed my complete name. In other situations they have simply used people’s middle initials.

Because the court publishes names, even when a file is “sealed,” the stimga easily still attachs for people like me who have highly unique names or whose names were docketed in full in the database.

If I had a common name I might get some benefit from this type of “sealing” as the viewer wouldn’t be able to determine exactly which “John Smith” the name entry referred to.

So, the current system is more fair to some than to others, simply because some have common names and others don’t. I can totally see how this practice is particularly unfair to African Americans as a group because of their cultural naming practices.

10. Because of a long-past criminal record, I am not being protected by the state from identity theft, and in fact the state is aiding and abetting ID theft by publishing my information and not taking simple steps to automatically remove it from public view.

In my case, and certainly for thousands of others with a long-ago criminal charge, the PA filed warrant and arrest information with all my personal identifier information.

If I want to have it redacted to protect myself against ID theft, this counts as my one-time “sealing.”

But other people having contact with the court system are automatically afforded the right to have this info redacted–without penalty.

My complete name, SSN, driver’s license no., birthdate, description, addresses and prior addresses, relatives’ names, employment information, signature samples and my bank account number are all there for anybody to take on demand and without trace.

Anyway–I hope to hear from somebody. It’s past time for some common-sense reforms here in Washington state.