Legislators Push for More Felony Expungements, Prison Labor Minimum Wage
Under current law, Mississippi citizens convicted of many misdemeanors and some felonies can petition to have the offense struck from their permanent record. Sen. Derrick Simmons, D-Greenville, is asking the Legislature to add several felonies to the list of possible expungements five years after the offender’s sentence was fulfilled. His Senate Bill 2136 would also add a new class of felonies that can be expunged after 20 years.
Mississippi code currently lists only six possible felonies open for expungement five years after fines and any sentence are completed: a bad-check offense, drug possession, false pretense (fraud), larceny, malicious mischief or shoplifting. SB 2136 would instead make any felony with 10 exceptions—including violent crimes, embezzlement, drug trafficking and felony gun violations—open to a petition for expungement.
If signed into law, the bill also would allow for additional expungements after a 20-year window. Only rape, sexual battery, failure to register a sexual offender, witness intimidation, certain crimes against vulnerable persons and repeat DUI felonies would be excluded from the list of felonies open for expungement from an offender’s permanent record after two decades.
"[A] person who has been convicted of any felony other than those (listed) may petition the court in which the conviction was had for an order to expunge the conviction from all public records twenty (20) years after the successful completion of all terms and conditions of the sentence for the conviction," the bill says.
Read more: https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2021/jan/25/legislators-push-more-felony-expungements-prison-l/