Legislature(2023 - 2024)ADAMS 519
05/01/2023 01:30 PM House FINANCE
Note: the audio ![]()
and video ![]()
recordings are distinct records and are obtained from different sources. As such there may be key differences between the two. The audio recordings are captured by our records offices as the official record of the meeting and will have more accurate timestamps. Use the icons to switch between them.
| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| HB66 | |
| HB28 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| += | HB 66 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | HB 28 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED |
HOUSE BILL NO. 28
"An Act restricting the release of certain records of
convictions; and providing for an effective date."
2:54:18 PM
Co-Chair Foster asked for a brief recap of the bill.
REPRESENTATIVE STANLEY WRIGHT, SPONSOR, introduced himself.
ALLAN RIORDAN-RANDALL, STAFF, REPRESENTATIVE WRIGHT,
briefly described the bill. The legislation aimed to reduce
barriers for individuals with low level marijuana
possession charges in two parts. First, the bill would
remove the information from any Department of Public Safety
(DPS) background checks. Second, the bill would prevent the
court system from adding any information regarding such
charges onto its public website. He relayed that the court
system had already removed any of the charges that fell
under the category and the specific section of the bill had
been removed.
Co-Chair Foster asked the court system to review its fiscal
note.
NANCY MEADE, GENERAL COUNSEL, ALASKA COURT SYSTEM, relayed
that the court system already did exactly what the bill
called for in Section 4. The section was not necessary
because the court had taken the action of amending its own
rules about what went on the public version of CourtView.
She had just received the message that the cases under the
specific category had been removed earlier in the day. The
court system's fiscal note was zero because the bill did
not require it to do anything that had not already been
done. She stated it was the court's position that since the
court had already done on its own volition what Section 4
sought to accomplish, the section was unnecessary.
Representative Tomaszewski asked for clarity on Ms. Mead's
statements about the related actions taken by the court.
Ms. Mead replied that the court passed a rule amendment
that it had signed about two months back to accomplish
exactly what the bill called for. The court had a rule
about what did and did not appear on the public version of
CourtView and had many categories. She elaborated that in
February the court system had amended the rule to take more
and more cases off of the public version of CourtView and
had signed an order with an effective date of May 1 to
remove all of the old marijuana possession cases for people
over 21 with no other convictions in the case.
2:58:44 PM
Representative Tomaszewski asked if there was anything
stopping the court system from changing the rules back.
Ms. Mead noted that she believed the supreme court order
that accomplished the rule change was included in members'
bill packets (supreme court order (SCO) 2001). She answered
that the court could theoretically reverse itself, but it
had never happened. She stated there was a zero percent
chance of a reversal taking place, especially because the
trend was to remove cases from CourtView and never to add
cases to CourtView in recognition of some of the public
concerns about what appeared there. The category addressed
by the legislation pertained to cases that by definition
were resolved prior to legalization in 2015 (or the offense
occurred prior to legalization). She reiterated there was a
zero percent chance that the court would want to
republicize what happened in the old cases. She relayed
that the court considered the action it had taken as a
cleanup.
Representative Tomaszewski asked if the court had an
objection to the bill.
Ms. Mead answered that the action could be done via
statute; however, the court believed it was unnecessary.
She elaborated that the court maintained items on CourtView
according to what it thought was appropriate. She explained
that CourtView was the court system's own website and case
management system. There was a recognition that the public
used the website for things other than managing cases. For
example, people used the website to find out information
about people's past convictions. The court preferred to
make its own rules about what appeared on its website under
a general separation of powers doctrine. However, in the
past, the legislature had told the court via statute to
remove a category or two of cases from CourtView. The court
system had done so and there had been no objection. She
relayed that the court system was not opposing the bill.
3:01:36 PM
Representative Josephson thought Ms. Mead had stated there
were more than 12 or so infractions, charges, or
convictions that already did not show up on CourtView. He
asked if his understanding was correct.
Ms. Mead agreed. She elaborated that the topic addressed by
the bill was the 15th subsection and category of cases
removed from CourtView under the court's Administrative
Rule 40A.
Representative Josephson asked if the court system could
get rid of CourtView altogether if it chose to do so.
Ms. Mead replied affirmatively.
Representative Josephson asked what Ms. Mead would have
said if he had asked her five years ago whether she
anticipated all of the legislative hearings on CourtView.
Ms. Mead replied that she did not know what she would have
said, but she did not anticipate that CourtView would
become such a topic in the building.
Representative Josephson stated that he was likely to
support the bill. He asked for verification that if someone
possessed marijuana and had significant criminal charges
that were dismissed, there would be no way for the public
to see the information in CourtView. He stated his
understanding that charges were not sufficient and a
conviction would be necessary for the conviction
information to remain on CourtView.
3:03:40 PM
Ms. Mead clarified that the bill and the court system's
rule, which were exactly the same, removed marijuana
possession convictions. They were not looking at what was
originally charged or at other charges. She explained that
cases that were fully dismissed were a category that the
legislature had told the court system to remove from
CourtView. She elaborated that any criminal case whether it
was murder, drugs, or assault, that ended with a full
dismissal and/or acquittal, came off of CourtView because
of a statute.
Representative Josephson explained that he had not been
talking about marijuana convictions. He clarified that he
was talking about second, third, and fourth charges. He
stated his understanding that cases resulting in an
acquittal or dismissal were already gone from CourtView. He
asked for verification that the bill would not remove or
delete more charges in that respect.
Ms. Mead agreed. She confirmed that a case that ended in
full dismissal, full acquittal, at a plea bargain was
already removed from CourtView under the legislature's
statute. She stated that the bill removed convictions.
Representative Hannan remarked that the court undertook the
removal of convictions once state law had changed and the
crimes were no longer crimes under state law. She clarified
she was speaking about low level cannabis possession
convictions by people over the age of 21 that were no
longer crimes as of 2015. She surmised that the court
system did not merely arbitrarily look at categories of
crimes and remove them from CourtView.
Ms. Mead confirmed that the court recognized the conduct
was legal and along with the passage of time that the value
of having the information on CourtView was no longer as
strong as the possible consequences of having the cases on
CourtView. She stated that perhaps in 2016 or 2017 it was
not as true because the conduct was more recent, but by
2023, eight years after legalization, it was the supreme
court's conclusion that having the cases on CourtView was
no longer a strong enough public benefit in comparison to
the possible consequences. She clarified that the other
categories of things that did not appear on CourtView the
statute said dismissed cases were cases where the value
of having the public know about them was generally
outweighed by the detriment to the person whose name was on
the website. One of the biggest categories was domestic
violence protective orders that someone filed. She
explained that they would go on CourtView, but if the court
denied a short-term or long-term order and there was no
probable cause, the item would not go on CourtView. She
summarized that all of the other categories were ones where
it could be harmful to a person and having their name on
the website was not beneficial.
3:07:45 PM
Representative Josephson stated there were about 2,500
attorneys in Alaska and his last practice had been family
law about nine years back and related to things like
restraining orders. He added that he had been in court
constantly. He explained that people would pay a good
amount of money to represent them zealously. One of the
things that he had done was to find out nearly everything
about the other party. The beauty of CourtView was the
ability to find easily accessible, free information that
did not require deposing someone. He had been able to go to
the courthouse and pull 10 to 20 files. He stated that
given the bill and previous reforms, if someone was trying
to zealously represent a client, it would get more and more
challenging for them to know they had the complete body of
evidence on an opposing party. He stated that an attorney
may want to go to the troopers to see if they had
additional information or get a court order.
Ms. Mead answered that under the supreme court order
directing the court system to remove the cases, the cases
were removed from the public version of CourtView. She
remarked that an attorney could go back to what existed
prior to CourtView and walk into a courthouse. She added
that the 15 categories under the court's administrative
rule were unpublished. She explained that the information
was not on the public version of CourtView, but it was not
confidential. She elaborated that a person could walk into
a courthouse and go to a public kiosk to view all of
CourtView with the exception of truly confidential cases.
She stated that if a person cared a lot they could walk
into a courthouse and use the kiosk to find out more about
individuals than they could from their living room.
3:10:38 PM
Co-Chair Foster asked for a review of the DPS fiscal note.
LISA PURINGTON, CRIMINAL RECORDS AND IDENTIFICATION BUREAU
CHIEF, DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY, reviewed the
department's fiscal impact note, OMB Component Number 3200.
She relayed that based on amendments made in the House
Judiciary Committee that added a fee of up to $150 for
individuals requesting that records be limited from
dissemination in certain background checks under AS
12.62.160(b)(8), the department revised its fiscal note to
reflect the costs that would ideally be covered by program
receipts generated by fees charged. She explained that
because it was unknown how many individuals would come
forward to request that the records be restricted from
dissemination, the department had only projected a cost out
for two years. The first year cost was $180,100 for
programming costs of $56,000. She elaborated that DPS
maintained the state's criminal history repository, which
was separate from the database managed by the court system.
She expounded that the database was on a mainframe system
and DPS would need to contract out the costs to have
programming put in place to prevent the records from being
disseminated when the department received background check
requests. The additional cost in year one would be for
temporary funding for one full-time criminal justice
technician to research the records.
Ms. Purington noted that the bill applied to up to one
ounce of marijuana for individuals who were over the age of
21 at the time the offense was committed. She stated that
unfortunately the state criminal history repository did not
always list the age of the individual, which would require
DPS to conduct research to ensure the age of offense was
within the scope of the legislation. Additionally, the
department would have to research the dispositions that did
not always have the underlying subsections, which would
clearly identify the conviction was for under one ounce of
marijuana. She explained that more recent convictions would
be fairly easy to do, but older convictions would take a
bit of time. The second-year cost was $114,700 for the
full-time position. The department anticipated the costs in
years one and two to be offset and funded through program
receipts generated by the individuals paying the $150 fee
for the requests.
Representative Stapp referenced the amendment [made to the
bill in the House Judiciary Committee] charging a fee of up
to $150 per request. He asked if it changed the way DPS
removed the convictions and meant the department would not
remove convictions until requested by individuals. He asked
if it would extend the payment timeframe to perpetuity
instead of removing all of the records at one time.
Ms. Purington responded that the change in the fee
structure would result in a fee being collected by the
department. She explained that the programming would have
to be done regardless to prevent the records from being
disseminated as requested and outlined in the bill. The
department would still need to hire a full-time position if
there were more than one or two requests coming in. She
reiterated her earlier testimony that some of the requests
would require research, while others would be easier.
Representative Stapp understood the software identification
costs were fixed and would not change. He thought that in
theory, once identified, the department should have the
ability to remove all of the convictions meeting the
criteria in a given amount of time. He believed the
department would be able to sunset the position after that
point. However, he reasoned that under a fee for service
model, the department would need to have the position on
payroll in perpetuity because the department did not know
the number of years in the future that people would make
the requests. He asked if his assessment was fair.
3:16:32 PM
Ms. Purington responded yes, but the department anticipated
the bulk of the requests to be in the first two years. She
agreed that subsequent years were unknown, and the
department had not been comfortable projecting farther out.
Representative Stapp stated he thought the position should
be a long-term non-permanent position that sunset after a
couple of years. He asked if the position would continue in
perpetuity.
Ms. Purington answered that ideally, if the position was
not addressing individuals' concerns full-time, their
remaining time could be spent researching the records. She
agreed that programmatically, the department could look at
the existing statutes that clearly identify the people
convicted of possession of under one ounce of marijuana
when over the age of 21 at the time of the offense. She
relayed that unfortunately some of the convictions in the
system only had a four-digit offense code identifying that
a conviction was for marijuana; therefore, it would need to
be researched. She explained that it was not possible to
universally clear out the database for all of the
qualifying convictions.
Representative Tomaszewski thought there was some confusion
about the fee. He pointed to language on page 3, lines 5
through 6 of the bill: "pays a fee established by the
agency in regulation in an amount that is not less than
$150." He observed that $150 was the minimum price and
there was no maximum. He asked if his understanding was
accurate.
Ms. Purington agreed. She relayed that the fiscal note
included a baseline of $150.
Representative Josephson asked if the department believed
it had fiscal receipt authority or that the funds would go
to the general fund.
Ms. Purington answered the department believed it had the
receipt authority based on its existing legislative
authority to take receipts for background checks in
general. The department thought the receipts that would be
generated under the bill fell under the same scope.
Representative Coulombe asked if there would be a $150
charge for the removal of each conviction or per person.
Ms. Purington answered that the department viewed the
language to mean per conviction. She elaborated that the
numbers added up as the department looked at convictions.
There were some individuals who would have multiple
convictions that fell within the scope of the bill.
Representative Coulombe stated her understanding that it
would be a minimum fee of $450 if someone had three
convictions they wanted to clear.
Ms. Purington answered that was the way the department
viewed the bill language. She relayed the department would
look at the numbers to see how many individuals fell
withing the scope of the bill and would then determine
whether it would do it on a per individual basis rather
than a per conviction basis. She agreed the fee seemed
excessive for individuals with multiple convictions.
Representative Coulombe stated there was a difference
between CourtView and what DPS did. She detailed that
CourtView was a public facing website whereas DPS would be
removing convictions that would show up on a background
check.
Ms. Purington agreed. She explained that CourtView was the
court system's records management system. The state's
criminal history repository [under DPS] was the state's
official record and was the central registry for all
criminal convictions. She elaborated that by statute
individuals often had to have a particular statutory
authority for a background check for certain positions or
requirements. She shared that it was called an "any person
report" meaning any person was entitled to the report. She
expounded that the background checks authorized under AS
12.62.160(b)(8) were already somewhat limited because they
did not display non-conviction information. She noted that
if a person had their charges dismissed or they were found
not guilty, the information would not display on the
record. Additionally, arrests that were over 12 months old
without a disposition were also not displayed on the
record. She remarked that it was different than the
background checks authorized under other statutes. For
example, the information would not be redacted when dealing
with children and vulnerable adults.
Representative Hannan asked if there were any other crimes
or former crimes that did not show up in a person's
criminal background check after paying a fee.
Ms. Purington replied in the negative.
Representative Hannan provided a scenario where twin
brothers were convicted of the same crime on the same day
and both needed background checks. She elaborated that one
of the brothers paid a fee to have and appeared to have not
been convicted, while the other brother did not pay the fee
and his background check showed the conviction, meaning he
was ineligible to apply for the State Trooper Academy.
Under the scenario, one brother was eligible to enter the
academy, while the other brother was not. She asked if it
seemed incongruent with the systems Ms. Purington generally
worked with.
Ms. Purington answered that it would be different than most
of the background checks processes followed by the
department.
3:24:29 PM
Co-Chair Foster OPENED public testimony.
DAVID MORGAN, GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS ASSOCIATE, REASON
FOUNDATION, ATLANTA (via teleconference), stated that eight
years after legalization, many Alaskans still had criminal
records for low level marijuana possession. He stated that
a one size fits all approach of lifelong criminal records
did not make sense, especially considering that marijuana
possession was no longer considered a crime in Alaska. He
elaborated that nearly 90 percent of employers nationwide
conducted background checks on job applicants and research
suggested that applicants with criminal convictions were 50
percent less likely to receive a callback. He stated that
to the extent that low level marijuana possession
conviction records acted as a barrier to employment and
made it harder for people to stay on the right side of the
law, the relief provided under the bill would promote
public safety while saving taxpayer dollars. He thanked the
committee for its time and consideration.
Co-Chair Foster CLOSED public testimony.
Co-Chair Foster relayed amendments to the bill were due by
Wednesday at 5:00 p.m.
HB 28 was HEARD and HELD in committee for further
consideration.
Co-Chair Foster reviewed the schedule for the following
morning.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| HB 28 Supporting Document JUD 050123.pdf |
HFIN 5/1/2023 1:30:00 PM |
HB 28 |