The passage of bills that would help children with disabilities, preserve rights of victims in criminal cases, and fight for the rights of the unborn highlighted another busy week in the Senate. As March 3 marked day 40 of our 60-day legislative session in Frankfort, we are still anxiously awaiting a budget bill from our colleagues in the House.
I proudly sponsored the latest piece of pro-life legislation to pass the Senate, Senate Bill (SB) 152, which requires a woman to get an ultrasound prior to obtaining an abortion. After hearing stories of tremendous loss from women who were not allowed to see their unborn child during their ultrasound before an abortion, I believe this legislation will not only cut back on the number of abortions but also the number of heartbreaking stories from families hurt from such a loss. After a 12-year wait, the House moved forward on the informed consent legislation (SB4), and I hope they will consider this bill as well. Two years ago I sponsored an identical bill (SB8) that failed to move when half the House members abstained from even voting when it came up.
During the course of the session there are bills that cover different topics orbiting around us. Some of these bills orbit at different speeds and some have more gravitational pull than others, drawing more support from legislators or conversely drawing additional ire from them. The orbital path of some bills can last several years, and over the span of the time, they might accumulate additional support and occasionally even lose support of members. For example, the dating violence bill entered our orbit ten years ago. It took nine years before it finally had enough momentum and gravitational pull to be passed and delivered to the Governor.
One of the concepts that has been orbiting for some time now is that of felony expungement. On one hand you have a desire to keep a record when people break the law against the Commonwealth and their fellow citizens. On the other hand, the conviction, in many instances, can be an economic death sentence long after the felon finished serving his sentence. Over the course of several years this concept has been debated, largely focusing on these two camps.
I have always tentatively supported some kind of expungement in broad terms for the lowest level offenses, excluding any sex crimes and violent offenses. One of the logistical hurdles has been the notion that there is inconsistency in how different agencies expunge the records they hold or whether any officials like prosecutors, law enforcement, or the court retained access to expunged records and under what circumstances. This continues to be a point of debate.
Another impediment has been the other issues that draw time and attention. John Tilley and I worked together last year on the heroin bill and the year before that on the juvenile justice reform bill and the aforementioned dating violence bill was there too along the way. Each of these efforts consumed an inordinate amount of our resources. To his credit, John had moved felony expungement legislation each of those years and successfully delivered the bills out of the House and into my hands in the Senate. Until last October, the first philosophical hold up in the Senate was with me.
Last October the Senate Judiciary Committee brought its show on the road to Hopkinsville, holding our monthly interim meeting at City Hall. There was a middle-aged gentleman who told the story of how he did something stupid with his brother some two decades earlier that resulted in a low level felony conviction when he was 18 years old. He has not committed another offense. He struggled to find work earlier on in the years following the conviction, and in the absence of a job he could find, he created one for himself. Wishing to explore other options, he is now attending school to become a physical therapist, but physical therapists are licensed by the Commonwealth and the prior felony conviction may bar his licensure. As many as 100,000 Kentuckians are in the same boat. This man and others like him have done exactly what we ask those in the criminal justice system to do: stop breaking the law. It was this man's testimony that finally sparked a desire in me to work harder to find a solution. Among everything else, this is something I have been working on this session.
The idea of expungement has merit but we continue to encounter questions and hurdles that have just as much merit. Which offenses should this privilege apply to? Most agree that some offenses, like sex crimes and violent offenses, should be excluded. However, this discussion has encouraged others to suggest carving out many other crimes. Healthcare facilities want felonies related to healthcare excluded. Humane societies and animal shelters want crimes victimizing animals to be excluded. Retailers and other industries that involve money handling or goods have asked for theft offenses to be excluded. I do not blame the desire to protect their businesses, patients, customers, and clients from a felonious employee, but this must be balanced with the interest of those who have corrected their behavior and turned a corner to improve themselves and contribute meaningfully to society. Perhaps some offenses should trigger an automatic expungement while others require judicial discretion after weighing certain factors.
We are debating the length of time one should wait before applying for an expungement. This covers a broad span of options and arguments. At one extreme there are those that want an expungement to be automatic upon the conclusion of the sentence, at the other extreme are those who prefer something on the order of decades, if ever at all. Data supports a waiting period in the neighborhood of five years, showing that recidivism rates drop significantly after that much time.
Needless to say, finding and building consensus is challenging. But that does not mean it should be avoided. This work will continue and I am hopeful we can deliver a compromise solution.
Last week marked the filing deadlines for new bills in both chambers, with the House hitting 632 and the Senate reaching 309. In the last couple years we averaged only about 120 that make it all the way to the Governor's desk. As we enter the final third of the 2016 Session, we still have much work left to do.
If you have any questions or comments about these issues or any other public policy issue, please call me toll-free at 1-800-372-7181 or email me at Whitney.Westerfield@LRC.ky.gov. You can also review the Legislature’s work online atwww.lrc.ky.gov.