New Maryland Laws Take Effect on October 1, 2015 – Spotlight on Expungement

New Maryland laws take effect on October 1, 2015!  We will be publishing a series of posts highlighting a few of the newly enacted laws.  This series is just a small sampling of the new laws enacted by the 2015 Legislative Session.  To read about more laws resulting from the 2015 session, see the 90 Day Report – A Review of the 2015 Session published by the Department of Legislative Services (DLS) of the General Assembly of Maryland. For a full listing of new laws effective October 1, 2015, check out this publication from DLS.

Senate Bill 651 (Chapter 0374) /House Bill 124 – Eligibility for expungement has been expanded to include “persons convicted of a crime where the act on which the conviction was based is no longer a crime.” You can learn more about this new law, including its legislative history, here.

House Bill 304 (Chapter 0314)- Eligibility for expungement generally does not include a petition based on the entry of probation before judgment, “except a probation before judgment for a crime where the act on which the conviction is based is no longer a crime, and the person is a defendant in a pending criminal proceeding or was convicted of a crime other than a minor traffic violation or a crime where the act on which the conviction is based is no longer a crime within three years after the entry of the probation before judgment.” You can learn more about this new law, including its legislative history, here.

House Bill 131 (Chapter 0069) – For criminal charges that were transferred to juvenile court, the petition for expungement must be filed in the court of original jurisdiction where the order for transfer was entered. You can learn more about this new law, including its legislative history, here.

To learn more about expungement and expungement resources, check out these articles on the Maryland People’s Law Library, our wiki page and our past blog post! In addition, the Maryland Courts website includes information on how to expunge your records.

Note that all quotations, unless noted otherwise, are attributable to the 90 Day Report – A Review of the 2015 Session published by the Department of Legislative Services of the General Assembly of Maryland, which is available online at http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/Pubs/LegisLegal/2015rs-90-day-report.pdf.