SAINT PAUL, Minn. — Minnesota is offering a way to speed up the process of clearing the slate for tens of thousands of Minnesotans with low-level crimes on their records.
Automatic expungement was passed by the legislature this year in what they called the Clean Slate Act.
The automated portion won't be working until 2025, but in the meantime, there are other options.
When Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison began an expungement program in 2020, he was struck by a 60-year-old woman who wanted to become a nanny.
"But she had a decades-old shoplifting conviction, which stood as a barrier for her to give to community what she was well-qualified to give," Ellison said.
People who've been convicted of low-level crimes — after a waiting period — can apply to have those records expunged, or removed from public view.
"There are still records; they're just not in a place where landlords and employers and people like that who might deny an opportunity based on that," Ellison said.
This year, the legislature voted to expand the state's expungement law — and automate it — in the Clean Slate Act, so that non-violent criminal history no longer prevents people from getting housing or jobs.
"'Clean slate' is exactly what it means — a clean slate," said Minnesota Senate President Bobby Joe Champion, one of the bill's authors.
The most common crimes eligible for expungement include:
- Fifth-degree drug possession or sale
- Theft
- Receiving stolen property
- Damage to property
"We're focusing on specific, low-level crimes and saying if you've been crime free for a certain waiting period, it will be automatic," said Rep. Jamie Long, another author of the bill.
The waiting period before eligibility for expungement ranges from two years after sentencing for misdemeanors; three years for gross misdemeanors; and five years for eligible felonies.
The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension is building the computer infrastructure needed to process the automatic expungements, which will affect thousands of Minnesotans.
For people who don't want to wait until 2025, there is a clinic scheduled Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 1101 W. Broadway Ave. in Minneapolis, where people can petition to get their expungement now.
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