Delaware became the fifth state to enact Clean Slate legislation in 2021, and the automated expungement process started this month.
On August 1, Delaware began automatically clearing the records of 290,000 eligible Delawareans for certain arrest, misdemeanor and some felony records.
Eligible records could include things like non convictions — charges or arrests that were dropped or found not guilty — certain misdemeanors after five years and a very limited number of felonies after 10 years. You can find the full list of eligible records here.
ACLU of Delaware's Deputy Policy and Advocacy Director John Reynolds says enacting the Clean Slate Act was a huge step for Delaware, but some unanswered questions about the process remain.
He notes the State Bureau of Identification (SBI) has decided to check each criminal record identified as eligible for expungement by hand, which could delay the process.
"That's partly why it's taking so long — or will likely take so long — despite the fact that state agencies received a fair amount of money to make this a automated based process, in which an algorithm, like in all these other states, uses the data that exists in the system that people have confirmed the accuracy of — or at least told us they've confirmed the accuracy of. They're deciding to double check it with a human, which could introduce more complications, mistakes and time into the process," Reynolds explains.
He says it's his understanding that no other Clean Slate state is checking records by hand, with the exception of a few states who do not have fully digitized records, therefore they have needed a human checking physical copies or records.
But he says Delaware does have some advantages as a smaller state, meaning it has fewer records to clear, and it also has a centralized court system and court database, which should make the process easier to automate.
"Unfortunately, despite all of those things, we're still going to have one of the slower rollouts, it appears, because while we’ve started, there's no clear indication for how long it's going to take to actually have the system catch up to speed.”
Reynolds says as of now, there’s also no good way for Delawareans to check if their record was expunged, unless they visit a court clerk office or pay a $72 fingerprinting fee to request their certified criminal history, but he argues cost barriers and tedious court processes were the reason Delawareans weren't filing petitions for expungement in the first place.
“There's no understanding of what order they're going in or when people can expect for the current backlog to be cleared. It may require people to pay that expense and set up those appointments and do this— what has been a barrier for most people getting an expungement," he said.
"I don't want to downplay this — August 1 was a big day, it is important. But there's lots of open questions that make it kind of hard for some people to understand how it truly impacts their lives just because we have a fair amount of unanswered questions."
You can find more information about the Clean Slate Act at the ACLU's Automated Expungement Hub.
