BOISE, Idaho — Lawmakers in the Idaho House will soon get to debate a major question: should Idahoans with a low-level offense have the opportunity to have their ‘slate’ wiped cleaned?
A group of lawmakers said yes.
“The current legislation creates a path which there is not in Idaho right now for people with relatively minor, nonviolent, non-sexual offenses to petition to seal their record,” legislative co-sponsor of House Bill 149, House Minority Leader, Democrat Ilana Rubel said.
Rubel is co-sponsoring the idea with Republican lawmakers Rep. Clay Handy and Senator Dave Lent. Rubel points out, there are a lot of consequences for people with convictions long after they serve their time and sentence. She said there are many collateral consequences that face people when they have a record in the U.S.
“Collateral consequences, which is all the other things that happen to you. The fact that now you can't get a job, you don't you can't get a license to do this, that or the other," Rubel said. "You can no longer be a foster parent. You can't adopt, you can't get into medical school. You can't get there's a million things that happen to you. Actually, technically, there are over 45,000 things that happen to you."
The idea is to remove minor convictions from public facing records for Idahoans with relatively minor, non-violent and non-sexual offenses on the misdemeanor level. Qualifying offenders would apply to the court for the ‘clean slate’ 5 years after the completion of a sentence, including probation, without any subsequent offenses. Rubel says she worked with major stakeholders to create a list of minor offenses that would qualify for this one-time opportunity. She added that the prosecutors wanted the list of offenses that would qualify to be very short.
"So to be clear, this is not for rapists and murderers. This is for the offenses like one time low level marijuana possession. At most, really, some of it is like littering, passing the school bus," Rubel said. "It's pretty minor stuff disturbing the peace minor in possession of alcohol. If you're busted with a beer at a party when you're 19, offenses like that. These are very low risk offenses."
Other states, 42 so far, have ‘clean slate’ programs similar to this concept, but to be clear Idaho’s would be for one single instance of minor crime, not a history of minor offenses.
“It's either a single offense or it can be multiple offenses if they're connected with the same incident. Let's say you're a teenager in college at a party but you get charged both with disturbing the peace for having too much loud music and for holding a beer while you're underage. Both of those would be sealable because they arose from the same incident,” Rubel said.
This proposal doesn’t act as a pardon or full cleanse of records, it simply removes a conviction or record from public view, promoting the idea of getting a job or housing.
“That's an important distinction. Some people refer to it as expungement. It's not expungement. It's when it's completely wiped off the face of the earth. This just means sealing, it will still be in law enforcement databases. Police will still be able to see it. And if you re-offend, that first offense will come back to haunt you and your subsequent offense will then be treated as a second offense and you will get the heightened penalties that come with the second offense. It's not completely wiped out, but it will largely be concealed from public view for purposes of job hunts and housing hunts and whatnot,” Rubel said.
Rubel believes this legislation will help promote better opportunities for Idahoans who truly made one mistake and are now paying for it for the rest of their life.
“It messes with people's lives in strange and unexpected ways. But I think we can open up new possibilities for people and enable them,' Rubel said. "These studies showed a sharp upturn in people's employment and their wages when they got this this remedy. So I really hope we can make a very positive impact in a lot of people's lives with this."
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