Capitol Retort: Proactive expungements, strong relationship,' cold and snowy.

Byline: Kevin Featherly

Editor's note: Welcome to Capitol Retort, our weekly review of issues in state and national news, with a rotating cast of legal and political people in the know. Answers are edited for length and clarity. Any instances of agreement are accidental.

[divider]

Question 1: Washington and Ramsey counties are proactively expunging the records of qualifying ex-offenders. In essence, all they need is notification that the ex-offender is interested and the county attorneys will do all the work to seal the records. Is that good public policy?

Ember Reichgott Junge, attorney, former state senator: I think the intent of the statute was to allow these ex-offenders a second chance. Many of those former offenders might not even be aware of the opportunity, so I think that if we can make it easier for them we can perhaps help them to transform their lives. So I would agree with it. I think the key word here is the word "qualified." Only certain ex-offenders can do this. So I would assume the county attorneys would have oversight of that and are making sure that they are protecting the public policy that the Legislature intended.

Mary Kunesh-Podein, DFL House member: Most of these offenses are sort of low-level that are just clogging up the judicial system. And lot of people are not taking care of it themselves because of the cost. That $332 [filing fee for standard the standard expungement process] could be a third of your rent, it could be your whole food budget for a month. Yet as a parent who might have one of these [convictions] on their record, it might prohibit them from being active in their children's lives. They might be afraid to volunteer at a school because something might show up on a background searchand schools all do background checks now. They might not be able to be a coach, because of a moment of misbehavior a while ago. So it just hits every aspect of a person's life. If we can clear it up, I do support it.

Greg Davids, former GOP House Taxes committee chair: I think we need to look at that law [Minn. Stat. Ch. 609a.025, which allows county attorneys to initiate expungements]. I think it might have gone a bit too far. I think other counties might join in with this, but I think we'd better be very, very careful if we've got convicted felons and we're expunging their records. I think that's something we'd better be talking about in the Legislature next year.

Peggy Scott, former GOP House Civil Law committee chair...