New York state will soon begin the process of automatically sealing millions of criminal convictions under a bill signed into law on Thursday by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Hochul, a Democrat, signed the legislation — known as the "Clean Slate Act" — during a ceremony at the Brooklyn Museum, hailing the bill as a way to break the cycle of incarceration.
“With the signing of this law, it adds to our momentum to get people back to work, give them those opportunities," Hochul said. "And all those people who’ve been convicted not able to find someone who will believe in them again, help lift them up, give them a home, independence again, have the dignity of a job, it means everything to people."
The new law was the product of years of negotiations in Albany, culminating in the state Legislature passing it shortly before the end of its annual session at the state Capitol earlier this year. The state’s Unified Court System has three years to identify all the millions of criminal convictions now eligible for automatic sealing.
Once fully implemented, the law will automatically seal state-level criminal convictions, effectively blocking them from public view, after a person is released from incarceration and completes a waiting period. For misdemeanor convictions, the waiting period is three years; for felonies, it’s eight years, according to the law.
The idea, supporters say, is to ensure those who have paid their debt to society get a second chance and aren’t discriminated against when applying for employment or housing.
The measure is expected to have a far-reaching effect. Nearly 2.2 million people were convicted of a crime in New York between 1980 and 2021, according to John Jay College’s Data Collaborative for Justice.
But the law includes several exceptions. It will neither apply to sex crimes nor most Class A felonies, including murder, first-degree kidnapping and arson. Certain drug-related Class A felonies would still be eligible for sealing under the law.
The Clean Slate Act also also carves out instances where certain state, local and federal agencies can still see past criminal convictions, even if they’ve been sealed. That includes agencies that process firearms licenses, and the Department of Motor Vehicles, which will still be able to see driving-related convictions.
Public schools, police agencies and licensed facilities that deal with children, older people or people with disabilities would also have access to sealed convictions when they’re looking to hire new employees, the law says.
The legislation had broad support from many Democratic lawmakers and a coalition of labor unions and business groups, including the Business Council, the state’s largest business lobby.
But many Republicans and law enforcement organizations pushed back against the bill when lawmakers passed it in June.
That included the then-president of the state District Attorneys Association, Tony Jordan, who said the bill was too broad and questioned whether the state court system has the capacity to carry it out. The current president, Erie County District Attorney John Flynn, said in a statement that the association has not taken a formal position.
The new law is the latest in a series of criminal justice reforms enacted in New York since the start of 2019, when Democrats took full control of the state Legislature. It follows prior measures that overhauled the state’s cash bail system, preventing courts from jailing defendants before their trials when charged with most misdemeanor and nonviolent felony charges.
Republicans, meanwhile, have tried to use those reforms to their advantage at the ballot box, branding Hochul as soft on crime during last year’s elections. Hochul won by fewer than 6 points in deep blue New York.
The GOP opposes the Clean Slate Act and has pledged to make an issue of it in the 2024 elections, when all 213 state legislative seats are on the ballot.
“This law puts the interests of offenders above the rights and welfare of the people who have suffered harm,” state Assemblymember Michael Tannousis, a Staten Island Republican, said in a statement. “It will seal criminal records while ignoring the effects on victims and the general public.”
State Sen. Zellnor Myrie of Brooklyn and Assemblymember Catalina Cruz of Queens, both Democrats, sponsored the bill in the Legislature.
“If you are a New Yorker who served their time, who paid their debt, help is on the way,” Myrie said.
“We’re going to start breaking that cycle of poverty and injustice that's been perpetrated by a criminal justice system that was designed to do exactly what it’s doing now — to keep people eternally under its thumb and changing generations to come,” Cruz added.
