Lawmakers called for criminal justice relief for half a million eligible Kentuckians. • Kentucky Lantern

LOUISVILLE – When James Sweasy was 19, he was convicted of a marijuana-related crime and spent the next 20 years of his life held back by his criminal record.

He got a lawyer and began the “several month” Process of deletion when he was in his early 40s, he said.

“No taxation without representation. …I can’t go on my kid’s field trip, can I?” he remembers thinking. “I can’t elect a school board member to supervise my child? I can’t comment on that, but you’re happy to take my tax money? I didn’t like that.”

Sweasy was part of a five-member panel that spent nearly an hour at the Women’s Healing Place in West Louisville Tuesday night discussing Kentucky’s current crime-fighting process — and her proposal to simplify and automate that process, which is expected to be presented to the Legislature next year .

“The computer would notice that (a crime) is now eligible (for expungement), initiate the process and move it along” without anyone having to file a petition or hire a lawyer, he explained Kungu Njugunaa policy strategist at the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky.

In 2024, a number of bipartisan lawmakers supported the proposal as House Bill 569but it didn’t make any progress beyond the committee phase. It’s unclear who would support an automatic expungement law next year.

In Kentucky, around 572,000 people are entitled to have their records completely expunged Data out of The Clean Slate Initiative. But not everyone has the resources and know-how to hire a lawyer, file an expungement request and ultimately expunge their records, advocates say.

Sweasy called Kentucky’s current expungement system “archaic” and a “nightmare” filled with “bureaucratic red tape” that is “not cheap.”

Njuguna said the proposed legislation would automate the current “complex” and “expensive” expungement process.

Crimes currently eligible for expungement would go through this process paperlessly and automatically. The proposal does not expand eligibility for expulsion, Njuguna said, and only covers crimes in Kentucky. Sexual and other violent crimes would not be automatically expunged.

“The current expungement process is complex and costly,” Njuguna said. “If you don’t have a lawyer, you probably won’t find a solution.”

This could hold Kentuckians back, he said, because many employers are hesitant to hire people who have been convicted of crimes.

“A criminal history prevents people from re-entering the workforce,” Njuguna said. “And so we’re trying to level that ground and give people a clean record, get them back into the workforce so they can get their lives back.”