PROVIDENCE –– Amid the chaos of last week’s special legislative session, advocates of a bill that would automatically erase a whole new class of criminal records scored a short-lived victory at the State House.

With no debate on the merits, the House voted 57 to 9 on Thursday for a measure — vetoed by the governor a year ago — that would have required the state’s courts to “quash and destroy” the record of any crime for which an admitted criminal received a “deferred” sentence, regardless of the nature of the crime or criminal history of the offender, as long as he or she stayed out of trouble for five years.

In recent years, criminals receiving deferred sentences included accused stalkers, embezzlers, an accomplice to a gunpoint robbery in Waterplace Park, one of the coconspirators in the Lincoln bribery scandal and at least one child molester. Emerging almost 10 months after its only State House hearing in January, the bill appeared headed for easy passage by the Senate last Thursday. But then it hit an insurmountable snag and died.

Legislative leaders realized they had, in their haste, inadvertently passed a version that the state’s judges, through their lobbyist, had adamantly opposed last January. They renewed their objection after the seemingly dead bill was passed Wednesday by the House Judiciary Committee.

In the hours before the House convened Thursday for the last night of the two-day special session, court lobbyist R. Kelly Sheridan told key lawmakers the state’s judges have no position on the merits of extending the state’s existing expungement law to a new class of people, who may not currently be eligible. He said that is a “legislative call.”

But he said they objected strongly to the “automatic destruction” of any court record, in part, because the decision should be made by a judge after a hearing in which the attorney general has been given a chance to comment.

And, Sheridan said, there is a much larger issue: “Public bodies should not be destroying a record of an official act.”

“It would be akin to the General Assembly destroying evidence of some vote that was taken five years ago. It’s just not appropriate,” Sheridan said this week. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Joseph Almeida, a retired Providence police officer, who argues that a criminal record hampers people from getting jobs and, in some cases, housing.

Year after year, Almeida asks a version of this question he posed in an interview this week: “How long do we keep punishing somebody if many years have gone by and they have not done anything [else] wrong or illegal?”

Rhode Island already has what the governor, the attorney general and the state police describe as one of the most liberal expungement laws in the nation. It allows judges to permanently seal the records of a nonviolent offense by a first-time offender 5 years after the individual has completed his or her sentence for a misdemeanor, 10 years after for a felony.

It also specifically allows those whose records have been expunged to tell prospective employers that they have never been convicted of a crime. Last year, 4,418 criminal case records of first-time offenders were sealed.

Almeida’s bill went a step further in requiring the courts to automatically destroy any public record of any crime that resulted in a deferred sentence, as soon as the deferral period ended, without any waiting period or regard to the nature of the crime, or history of the offender.

Almeida’s bill would have extended the opportunity to an unknown number of people who are not currently eligible, and substantially reduced the waiting period for many of those who are.

A deferred sentence usually comes as a tradeoff for a no-contest or guilty plea that spares the state from having to go to trial. The underlying notion: stay out of trouble, stay out of jail. No specific sentence is initially imposed. Instead, it provides a window of time in which a sentence could be imposed if the offender commits another crime.

An earlier version was vetoed by Governor Carcieri in 2008 on grounds it would “permit expungement for a violent felony … [after] a period of time, that usually runs five years, and by so doing, make it impossible for employers — including the state itself — to do meaningful criminal background checks.”

The governor said the legislation would also allow “early expungement” of offenses that would normally disqualify someone from working with children in a child-care center, as a child-care provider in a private home, or as a foster or adoptive parent.

Rep. Donald Lally, a Narragansett Democrat who is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, described what happened to the bill in last week’s session.

In the months since the House last met in June, he said Almeida “lobbied” House Speaker William J. Murphy and House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox to resurrect his bill. They agreed and told Lally, as judiciary chairman, that they wanted his committee to vote on it. The bill cleared the committee 9-to-2 Wednesday.

The next day, Sheridan — who had last testified on the bill in January –– presented a letter spelling out the changes the judges wanted: replacement of the words “automatically quashed and destroyed,” with a description of the petition-and-hearing process that applies to current bids for an expungement.

Through a series of miscues, the bill that eventually reached the Senate didn’t have the changes the judge’s requested and there was no final vote.

“You know, last minute, and sometimes things falls through the cracks,” Lally said.

While disappointed his bill failed again this year, Almeida says he’ll “just bring it back again next year … [because] people need a second start in life … and it [is] an issue that we have been fighting for a very long time.”

And Murphy, through a spokesman, said he “is committed to continue to work on the bill toward passage next year.”The House vote Voting yes

Ajello, D-Providence

Almeida, D-Providence

Azzinaro, D-Westerly

Caprio, D-Narragansett

Carnevale, D-Providence

Carter, D-North Kingstown

Coderre, D-Pawtucket

Corvese, D-North Providence

Costantino, D-Providence

DeSimone, D-Providence

Diaz, D-Providence

Driver, D-Richmond

Edwards, D-Tiverton

Ehrhardt, R-North Kingstown

Fellela, D-Johnston

Ferri, D-Warwick

Fierro, D-Woonsocket

Fox, D-Providence

Gallison, D-Bristol

Gemma, D-Warwick

Guthrie, D-Coventry

Handy, D-Cranston

Hearn, D-Barrington

Jackson, D-Newport

Jacquard, D-Cranston

Kennedy, D-Hopkinton

Lally, D-South Kingstown

Lima, D-Cranston

Loughlin, R-Tiverton

MacBeth, D-Cumberland

Malik, D-Warren

Martin, D-Newport

Mattiello, D-Cranston

McCauley, D-Providence

McNamara, D-Warwick

Melo, D-East Providence

Murphy, D-West Warwick

Newberry, R-N. Smithfield

O’Neill, D-Pawtucket

Pacheco, D-Burrillville

Petrarca, D-Lincoln

Pollard, D-Foster

M. Rice, D-South Kingstown

Ruggiero, D-Jamestown

San Bento, D-Pawtucket

Savage, R-East Providence

Segal, D-Providence

Serpa, D-West Warwick

Silva, D-Central Falls

Sullivan, D-Coventry

Trillo, R-Warwick

Vaudreuil, D-Cumberland

Walsh, D-Charlestown

Wasylyk, D-Providence

Watson, R-East Greenwich

Williams, D-Providence

Winfield, D-Smithfield

Voting no

Baldelli-Hunt, D-Woonsocket

Brien, D-Woonsocket

DaSilva, D-East Providence

Gablinske, D-Bristol

Kilmartin, D-Pawtucket

Marcello, D-Scituate

Menard, D-Lincoln

Rice, D-Portsmouth

Schadone, D-North Providence

Did not vote

Flaherty, D-Warwick

Giannini, D-Providence

Naughton, D-Warwick

Palumbo, D-Cranston

Ucci, D-Johnston

Shallcross Smith, D-Lincoln

Ucci, D-Johnston

Williamson, D-Coventry

SOURCE: House roll call

kgregg@projo.com