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House OKs bill to destroy criminal records

09:58 AM EDT on Friday, May 16, 2008

By Katherine Gregg
Journal State House Bureau

Rep. Joseph Almeida, D-Providence, left, talks with Rep. Steven Smith, D-Providence, in the back of the House chamber while Almeida’s expungement bill goes before the House for a vote. The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

PROVIDENCE — Advocates for convicted criminals scored a victory on Smith Hill yesterday.

Despite objections from the attorney general, the state police and the governor, the House voted 46 to 17 for a bill to quash and destroy the records of criminal cases in which the accused was given a deferred sentence, usually in exchange for sparing the state a trial by pleading no contest or guilty to a crime.

The bill, which is now headed to the Senate, calls for the automatic destruction of all such records at the end of the deferral period — which usually runs five years, regardless of how serious the crime or the criminal history of the offender as long as he or she stayed out of trouble in the interim.

Extra

Your turn: Should Rhode Island allow the automatic destruction of the record of any crime to which someone has pleaded no contest or guilty?

Read the full text of the bill

See the roll call vote on the "quash and destroy" bill

Read comments from Attorney General Patrick Lynch opposing the bill

Read comments from the public defender's office supporting the bill

Read a report generated by the Rhode Island Judiciary that summarizes the 4,985 criminal cases expunged by state judges over the last year

From The Journal, 2.6.2003: Rep. Almeida, the bill's sponsor, found guilty in assault case

Read the November Supreme Court decision

The bill sailed through the House with no debate yesterday after a heated — but short-circuited debate earlier this week — in which proponents assured their colleagues it was aimed at helping people remove from their records youthful indiscretions that were keeping them from moving ahead in life, school and jobs, and opponents noted the bill goes much further than the state’s existing expungement law in that it is not limited to nonviolent crimes by first-time offenders.

Beyond that, critics argued that it could be used as a legal club to try to prevent newspapers from publishing facts that the public already knows about crimes — or perhaps should know — if they involve candidates for a job, including public office. Current state law bars people with certain felony convictions from obtaining state licenses to work in nursing, social work and auto repair: this would provide a way around that.

“So now we are rewriting history and telling the newspaper they can’t refer to something that everybody knows about?” Rep. Laurence Ehrhardt, R-North Kingstown, asked rhetorically.

“I mean, as much as I like redemption Mr. Speaker, I also have a belief in freedom of the press. I also have a belief in the freedom of information and a knowledge of history and you don’t rewrite history,” argued House Minority Leader Robert A. Watson, R-East Greenwich, during that earlier debate. “My God, I am not going to do that today. I never will be that irresponsible with my vote. Ever.”

Current law already allows the expungement of a single nonviolent offense from the record of a first-time offender five years after he or she has completed a sentence for a misdemeanor, or 10 years after completing a sentence for a felony.

Despite efforts over the years by the minority community, the criminal defense bar and the gun lobby to shorten the waiting periods, this law remains intact and was used to remove 4,360 misdemeanors and 625 felonies from the public record last year alone, and 28,417 criminal cases from the public record since 2000.

Yesterday’s bill was sparked by a November decision by the Rhode Island Supreme Court on the treatment of cases in which the admitted criminal had been given a deferred prison sentence, as was the case in a number of high-profile cases involving accused stalkers, embezzlers, an admitted accomplice to a gunpoint robbery in Waterplace Park who traded testimony for a reduced sentence, one of the admitted co-conspirators in the Lincoln bribery scandal and at least one child molester.

The court’s decision centered on two admitted criminals foiled by a judge in their efforts to get their records expunged. One had pleaded no contest to second-degree robbery; the other to a drug-possession charge. Both received deferred sentences. They both appealed to the high court after a judge ruled them ineligible for expungement: the first because he had committed a violent crime, and the second because she got into further trouble.

“Because they never were actually sentenced,” their lawyer argued that “they had not been convicted of any offense and therefore all records involving their arrest and plea should be erased.” But the Supreme Court disagreed. Since “a plea of nolo contendere is an implied confession of guilt,” the court said “it follows that such a plea constitutes a conviction for purposes of weighing who is and is not eligible for expungement, even when it has been followed by a deferred sentence.”

The bill approved by the House yesterday would allow the automatic erasure the Supreme Court rejected as ill-reasoned.

In 2003, the bill’s lead sponsor — South Providence Democrat Joseph Almeida — was found guilty of shoving a man who was trying to repossess his girlfriend’s car from her driveway in Federal Hill. He was sentenced to one year of probation, 25 hours of community service and ordered to have no contact with the man or his brother.

A month later, House Speaker William J. Murphy appealed the misdemeanor assault conviction to the Superior Court on Almeida’s behalf and, under his guidance, Almeida entered an Alford plea, which the attorney general’s office describes this way: “a defendant does not admit the act and asserts his innocence, but admits that sufficient evidence exists with which the prosecution could likely convince a judge or jury to find the defendant guilty.”

In the minutes leading up to yesterday’s House vote, Almeida and Murphy denied that the lawmaker had anything personal to gain from passage of the bill.

“I mean everybody knows that I fight for the poor, the underprivileged and all those who have been locked up,” Almeida said, “so by me doing this bill … I’m not taking care of Joe Almeida … I’m doing what I’m known for: standing up for the South Side, all those whose been sent to prison for whatever reasons. That’s what I do … And you know what? Everybody up here is self-serving for the particular area that they come from. So be it.”

Speaking as Almeida’s lawyer, Murphy said, Almeida’s case will not be eligible for expungement until October 2009.

Murphy, a busy criminal defense lawyer, said the bill “is about fairness” because it also calls for the immediate destruction of records where the charges were dismissed or a person found innocent by a judge or jury and “by all means, those should be off anybody’s record.” With respect to the admitted criminals who get deferred sentences, he said “95 percent of all criminal cases are plea-bargained” and deferred sentences are one way, especially when “there may be a proof problem with the case.” How They Voted

YES (46)

Ajello, D-Providence

Almeida, D-Providence

Baldelli-Hunt, D-Woon.

Caprio, D-Narragansett

Carter, D-N. Kingstown

Church, D-N. Smithfield

Coderre, D-Pawtucket

Corvese, D-N. Providence

Costantino, D-Providence

DeSimone, D-Providence

Diaz, D-Providence