Senate Bill S4939A

                                 BILL NUMBER:  S4939A

 TITLE OF BILL :

An act to amend the executive law, in relation to criminal history
record searches and open warrants

 PURPOSE :

This bill will create a procedure to remove inaccurate information
from an individual's permanent criminal record as maintained by the
Division Criminal Justice Services (DCJS) as it relates to warrants
issued as part of a criminal proceeding.

 SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS :

Section 1 of the bill adds a new section 845-c of the executive law
creating a process whereby DCJS will exclude a warrant. that has not
been recalled from a person's criminal-history records where there has
been a new court proceeding reported on the case but no warrant has
been recalled. This section will not apply to criminal justice history
records available to state agencies with access to the DCJS data base
under. section 837(6) of the Executive Law or to law enforcement
agencies, but will affect criminal history background checks for civil
purposes.

              

Section 2 provides an effective date.

 EXISTING LAW :

Under Subsection six of Executive Law § 837, the Division of Criminal
Justice Services (DCJS) is required to establish a repository to
maintain a record of all arrests and prosecutions in New York State,
creating an individual's rap sheet. The registry's data includes a
record of all warrants issued as part of a criminal proceeding. Once
these warrants are vacated by the court, this information should then
be sent, to DCJS and recorded in the individual's rap sheet.

 JUSTIFICATION :

Due to failures in communication among the various criminal justice
agencies, the process outlined in the Executive Law is not always
followed, resulting in many individuals having rap sheets that list
warrants as active that have actually been recalled.  These mistakes
can cause an individual to be denied employment, housing or public
benefits for which they are eligible. Currently, in order to correct
warrant-related mistakes of this sort, an individual must return to
the court where his or her case was heard and ask the clerk of the
court to forward information regarding the vacated warrant to DCJS so
that this information may be correctly reflected on the individual's
criminal record. An individual must follow this process even when it
is clear from the criminal record that further proceedings occurred
and that the warrant in question must have been previously cleared.

This process becomes more complex, or even impossible, where the
phantom warrant involves an old case. Under the Records Retention and
Disposition Schedule issued by the Office of Court Administration
(OCA), courts are ordered to destroy records of all returned warrants
within five years of the date of return or recall. Court case files,
which may also contain records concerning warrants, are also scheduled
to be destroyed after a period of time. This period can be as short a
six years where the case was terminated in favor of the defendant or
resulted in a violation disposition. Even records of cases that ended
in a felony conviction are only retained for 25 years before they are
destroyed. As a result, once the courts no longer have any record of

these warrants, these persons have no opportunity to have this
inaccurate information removed from their record.

The proposed amendment provides a simple mechanism to have incorrect,
outdated warrant information removed from criminal history records
released for civil background checks. It will not affect the data seen
by qualified state agencies, including the courts, or by law
enforcement.

 LEGISLATIVE HISTORY :

2013-14: S.3255B/A.2896B - Referred to Codes, Reported and Third
Reading
2011-12: S.3377/A.6473 - Referred to Codes

 FISCAL IMPLICATIONS :

To be determined.

 EFFECTIVE DATE :
This shall take effect January 1, 2018.