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Connecticut Clean Slate Summary

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Current as of October 2024

Legislation passed date: June 10, 2021. Senate Bill 1019.

Effective date: November 1, 2022.

Implementation date: November 1, 2025

Appropriation: As of May 2022, the Connecticut General Assembly had allocated $4.1 million specifically to support automatic Clean Slate erasure development activities, including requirements identification, interface design, and implementation.

Records are Sealed. Connecticut uses the term “erased.”           

Eligibility Criteria:

Primary Erasure Legislation Review

  • Eligible Offenses
    • Offenses occurring after December 31, 1999. (Offenses that occurred prior to January 1, 2000 may be erased upon filing of a petition.)
      • Classified or Unclassified misdemeanor offenses of motor vehicle violations with maximum terms of imprisonment not more than one year shall be erased seven years from person’s latest conviction.
      • Class D, E, and Unclassified felony offenses with maximum terms of imprisonment of not more than five years shall be erased 10 years from the person’s latest conviction.
    • Exceptions include family violence crimes, nonviolent and violent sexual offenses and other specified statutes surrounding assault, rape, crimes against minor, firearm offenses, stalking, and related other crimes
      • Any conviction for driving under the influence with a subsequent conviction within 10 years of the conviction is excepted from erasure.
    • Non-convictions
    • On January 1, 2023, certain cannabis convictions were scheduled to be automatically erased. Other cannabis convictions and some older non-cannabis convictions can be erased via petition.
    • Offenses not eligible for Clean Slate erasure:

Additional requirements for Clean Slate erasure:

  • Completed all sentence components for all convictions. Sentence components include:
    • Prison time
    • Parole and special parole
    • Probation

Agencies Involved:

Current Status: Implementation and continued planning.

Approach:

DESPP is coordinating with the Judicial Department and Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) to develop planning materials, identify policy and information system requirements, and create system interface design documentation to automate the record erasure process.

DESPP is responsible for determining initial record eligibility upon receipt of a sentence discharge message from the courts confirming all terms for the sentence have been successfully completed. The eligibility determination made by DESPP is based on the offense statute, classification, and conviction date. Once eligibility is established, DESPP submits a notification to a message broker shared by state justice stakeholders, which then routes the notification to the appropriate agencies (e.g., courts, law enforcement, prosecutors, etc.) for subsequent record erasure within each agency’s records management system.

DESPP currently receives all dispositions electronically from the Judicial Department’s consolidated court case management system. The Judicial Department is the state court administrative entity and provides operational, technical, and financial support to the state’s non-unified court system.

Source: Clean Slate Message Traffic Flow.

Reported/anticipated challenges:

  • Charge matching between DESPP and court dispositions, particularly with citations in lieu of arrest where courts may have records that were never submitted to DESPP.
  • Updating criminal history records (the “Hold Rap Pending” in the table below) relates to paper records and cases, where DESPP needs further research and investigations to determine whether cases are eligible (e.g., determining whether assault cases involve domestic violence) and for cases pending dispositions.
  • Going through 24 years of records to resolve data quality issues to determine an eligibility date.
  • Not entirely an automated process. DESPP processes approximately 5,000 case dispositions from the courts every weekday night, to update the CCH system. They are working to become entirely automated, but they still must process some records manually.
  • Hiring and retaining qualified full-time staff.
  • Determining completion of sentence, eligibility waiting periods and establishing an eligibility date.

Notifications

Upon granting an absolute pardon, BOPP notifies the petitioner and the clerk of the sentencing court or the Office of the Chief Court Administrator if such person was convicted in the Court of Common Pleas, the Circuit Court, a municipal court, or a trial justice court. The court or Office of the Chief Court Administrator will then direct law enforcement agencies to erase the pertinent records, since they are prohibited from disclosure. These agencies are not under a statutory requirement to physically destroy records, unless the record subject requests record destruction and 3 years have elapsed since the final disposition. 

The Judicial Department shall make information regarding erased records available to background screening providers and similar data-based service providers and companies. CT Gen Stat § 54-142e (a). All background screening companies and similar data-based service providers and companies shall, prior to disclosing such records 1) purchase from the Judicial Department of other agency on a monthly basis (or other mutually agreed schedule) any updated matters of public record information and 2) update its records of criminal matters of public records not later than 30 calendar days after receipt of the information on erasure of criminal records. CT Gen Stat § 54-142e (b).

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If you have questions about the Clean Slate Community of Practice, please contact cscop@search.org.