Criminal records: relief

The law broadens access to relief without requiring eligible people to file a petition. It also strengthens court-record confidentiality and gives people documentation that relief was applied.

What the law does ​

• Grants automatic arrest-record relief for felony arrests when all charges were dismissed, one year has passed since the latest dismissal, and no charge was refiled or remains pending.
• Requires the Department of Justice to treat a charge as no longer pending after three years without new case activity and, when sentence completion cannot be determined, to treat a sentence as complete after seven years from conviction.
• Extends court nondisclosure rules to records granted relief under additional conviction-relief laws.
• Requires courts, on request, to provide a register of action confirming receipt and implementation of relief.
• Treats conviction records granted relief as inaccurate, irrelevant, untimely, or incomplete for purposes not otherwise allowed by law.

Who it affects ​

• People arrested for felonies whose charges were all dismissed and remain unfiled for one year.
• People whose eligibility for automatic conviction relief is obscured by inactive pending-charge entries or incomplete sentence information.
• Superior courts and the Department of Justice, which must update, restrict, and document affected records.