LANSING, Mich. — An estimated 1 million Michiganians will have certain misdemeanor and felony records automatically expunged or set aside starting Tuesday as the state begins to implement the final step in a 2020 law designed to give residents a "clean slate."
On Tuesday morning, Michigan State Police will begin running software it's built over the last two years to sort through the state's criminal history database to determine which felonies and misdemeanors should be automatically expunged or set aside under the 2020 law and alert courts to those cases.
The automatic expungement law will set aside certain misdemeanors after a seven-year, post-sentencing waiting period and certain non-assaultive felony convictions after a 10-year, post-sentence completion waiting period. Eligible convictions that are expected to be expunged include misdemeanor marijuana offenses for possession and use of the drug that became legal for adult recreational purposes in 2018.
The State Court Administrative Office will work with district courts to sort through which lesser misdemeanors should be expunged automatically under the law.
The first swath of set-asides, which will take several weeks to process, are expected to encompass thousands of convictions across the state stretching back decades, Attorney General Dana Nessel said.
"We anticipate over 1 million residents will have convictions automatically expunged on April 11, 400,000 of whom will end the day completely conviction free," Nessel said in a video released Tuesday. "And those will just continue to go up as the program continues to run."
Michigan is among 10 states to have adopted automatic expungement legislation but will be the third behind Pennsylvania and Utah to implement the process, said John Cooper, executive director of Safe & Just Michigan, a nonpartisan organization that advocated for the 2020 "clean slate" laws.
"The economic impact and just the human impact of this are really significant," said Cooper, noting the effects the expungements could have on thousands of individuals' ability to find employment and access housing.
Since April 2021, the new law has allowed individuals to petition a judge to have eligible convictions expunged from their public criminal records.
Former state Rep. Eric Leutheuser considers the automatic expungement provision a "noble idea" that required time and debate to surmount "legitimate concerns and legitimate obstacles and logistics." But the goal of the bipartisan group involved in passing the legislation remained focused, the Hillsdale Republican said.
"It wasn't a deterrent, and it wasn't a step toward rehabilitation; it didn't seem to serve two of the main elements of our criminal justice systems," Leutheuser said of individuals carrying felony and misdemeanor convictions with them for life.
"This notion that a crime follows you forever doesn't seem to be justified."
While the first batch of automatic expungements will be the largest, the state's software will re-evaluate eligibility each month to identify additional convictions where the waiting period has passed, according to the State Court Administrative Office.
The expungement or "set-aside" will erase the offenses from an individual's criminal history and make private court and police records involving the set-aside conviction. Police will retain nonpublic records of past convictions for reference in the event that a person re-offends. In that sense, the "set-aside" differs from a traditional expungement because records are retained related to the offense but are no longer publicly available in online databases.
Those public databases include the Michigan State Police's ICHAT online criminal background search tool, which employers and youth organizations use to check for past felony convictions of a job applicant or adult volunteer.
Any misdemeanors or felonies considered assaultive crimes, serious misdemeanors, crimes of dishonesty, human trafficking, drunken driving, certain abuse offenses or crimes punishable by more than 10 years are not eligible for an automatic set-aside under the law. Individuals with pending criminal charges or individuals who were convicted of another crime during their waiting period that appears in the state criminal history record also are not eligible.
There are no limits to how many eligible misdemeanors with a penalty of fewer than 92 days in jail can be automatically expunged. But misdemeanors punishable by more than 93 days in jail are limited to four per person and eligible felonies are limited to no more than two per person.
The passage of the legislation in 2020 significantly expanded Michigan's expungement laws to include more crimes and alter the expungement application and processing requirements.
Former state Rep. Yousef Rabhi, an Ann Arbor Democrat who now serves on the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, said the legislation will change people's lives and the state for the better.
"This day is going to be frankly one that we remember for years to come because there are so many people in our state where their records have been keeping them in a cycle of poverty," said Rabhi, who was a sponsor of the seven-bill package.
Some groups opposed to the package in 2020 still had reservations about the automatic nature of the expungements.
"It's not that we don't feel individuals deserve second opportunities," said Matt Saxton, executive director for the Michigan Sheriff Association and a retired Calhoun County sheriff. "But we felt that those individuals should go through a process to have those actions expunged from their records and put a little effort into that."
But Cooper argued the current expungement system continued to tax the judicial system while providing limited relief to individuals who need it most.
"Every lawyer in Michigan could spend all day every day in court doing expungements," he said. "They would never make a dent."
Michigan State Police worked with the Department of Management, Technology and Budget over the last two years to develop software able to search the state's criminal history records database to determine which convictions qualify for a set-aside and removal from the database. The records will remain in the Law Enforcement Information Network, a statewide computerized information system used by police, in a nonpublic capacity.
When MSP's software fires up Tuesday, the state police will begin sharing daily batches of set-aside cases with courts and police regarding which records should be made nonpublic. It's expected to take several days to get through all eligible set-asides, state officials said.
The State Court Administrative Office is aiding local courts in identifying and setting aside eligible misdemeanors that carry a penalty of fewer than 92 days and notifying police they've been set aside.
"The initial volume anticipated from MSP, along with the 92 day or less misdemeanors, will take several weeks for us to complete every court's update," State Court Administrator Thomas Boyd said in an April 3 memo to Michigan judges and court administrators.
While all of those cases are mapped, Michigan's centralized public case search, MiCOURT Case Search, will not display any cases older than seven years in order to avoid accidentally displaying a case that should be under seal under the new law, Boyd said in the memo.
A court could reinstate a conviction, however, if an automatic expungement was granted erroneously or the court found the person failed to make a good-faith effort to pay restitution.
