AUTOMATIC EXPUNGEMENT OF CERTAIN CANNABIS RELATED OFFENSES
The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) is hard at work preparing to implement a pair of decisions by the Minnesota Legislature that mandated expungement of certain criminal history records, removing them from public view.
The Adult-Use Cannabis Act and the Clean Slate Act passed last spring by lawmakers identifies what types of records (convictions, arrests, juvenile records, etc.) can be seen and by whom. Public data from criminal history records can be viewed on the BCA's Criminal History System (CHS) website.
Based on the initial analysis, more than 66,000 criminal history records are eligible for automatic expungement under the Adult-Use Cannabis Act. An additional 230,000 felony records are eligible for review by the Cannabis Expungement Board. Work to determine how many records would be affected by the Clean Slate Act is still underway.
The BCA's work to enable the automatic expungements of cannabis-related records is well underway. There are more than a dozen staff and contractors working to automate expungement of cannabis- and Clean Slate-related records. The BCA is continuing to analyze rules for identifying records and notifying law enforcement agencies and the Minnesota Judicial Branch; however, they've also begun developing certain changes that will be required to be made to CHS.
While the BCA continues to work on changes to CHS to make these expungements possible, they have added language to all criminal history records to indicate that a record may contain information about an act that is no longer illegal in Minnesota. Here's what it says:
“Minnesota Session Laws – 2023, Chapter 63, Article 5 requires automatic expungement of certain cannabis-related offenses effective August 1, 2023. While the Criminal History System is being updated to support the changes, an individual's record may include cannabis-related offenses that are eligible for automatic expungement. In addition, an individual's record may include cannabis-related offenses that are eligible for review by the Cannabis Expungement Board. The Board will determine whether the offense meets the criteria for resentencing or an order of expungement through the Judicial Branch."
This language will remain on all criminal history records until work to complete the automatic expungement of qualifying records is completed.
Cannabis-related expungements will begin in mid-2024, and the BCA anticipates Clean Slate-related expungements will be implemented to meet the January 2025 deadline.
Updates will continue to be posted to the BCA website. Anyone who needs access to records expunged under the recently passed legislation can also visit the expungement webpage to learn more about that process.
