ATLANTA – Second-chance legislation allowing Georgians to clear minor offenses off their criminal records in the interest of helping them secure jobs and housing is set for a vote in the Georgia Senate Thursday.
Senate Bill 288 would give people with first-time misdemeanor and non-violent felony convictions in Georgia the ability to petition superior courts to have those records shielded from public view. They would have to wait until four years after completing their sentences before filing a petition and would have to keep a clean record during that time.
More than 4.4 million people have a criminal record of at least an arrest in Georgia, totaling nearly half the state’s population, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Allowing many of them to block prospective employees or landlords from seeing minor crimes for which they have completed sentences should improve the state’s economic and social environment, according to the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Tonya Anderson.
“There are millions of Georgians that cannot get a job or housing and employment,” said Anderson, D-Lithonia.
Anderson’s bill is one of several before the General Assembly that would let more people shield their criminal records than Georgia law currently permits. Law enforcement agencies would still have access to the records.
Her bill would not apply to people with convictions for certain domestic and nuisance charges like family violence and stalkers, plus other major offenses like sex crimes, drunk driving and child molestation.
State law currently requires people with certain downgraded charges, vacated convictions and cases that have languished for years to petition a court to restrict access to their records. But only certain misdemeanor convictions can be shielded such as for alcohol-related charges, first-time drug possession and crimes committed before age 21.
Originally, Anderson’s bill proposed to automatically restrict public access to most kinds of criminal convictions and arrest histories. It would have allowed records of felony charges to be shielded if 10 years have passed since the sentence was completed, as well as for overturned convictions and any charges that never led to a conviction.
But Anderson’s bill was swapped out last week in the Senate Judiciary Committee for a measure filed in the Georgia House by Rep. Mandi Ballinger, R-Canton. Several criminal justice groups like the nonprofit Georgia Justice Project and the Georgia Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers backed the changes even though they did not go as far as Anderson’s original bill.
Brenda Smeeton, the Georgia Justice Project’s legal director, said at a committee hearing last week the revised bill mimics the more gradual approach other states have taken in recent years to enact second-chance laws.
“We think this would be a huge step,” Smeeton said.
Anderson’s revised bill is scheduled for a vote on the Senate floor Thursday, the last day for bills in General Assembly to move out of one chamber in time to be considered in the other during this year’s legislative session.