Clean Slate Press Conference, Harrisburg, June 28, 2019

On Friday, June 28, 2019, Governor Tom Wolf, the Justice Action Network, and a bipartisan group of lawmakers and advocates held a press conference in Harrisburg, PA announcing that Pennsylvania’s courts will begin automatically sealing more than 30 million criminal records - half of their entire database - as a result of the Commonwealth’s first-in-the-nation Clean Slate Act. Pennsylvania became the first state in the country to use an automated process to seal certain criminal records and offer second chances for individuals with low-level offenses. Courts will now use this process to include all charges that were dropped or where individuals were found not guilty, as well as summary and minor misdemeanor convictions that are ten years old. Sealed cases can be viewed by law enforcement, but not by the public. 

The event, and the beginning of automatic record-sealing, drew wide press coverage, including the Washington Post, CNN, NPR, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Daily News, Slate, Governing, and numerous local news outlets across Pennsylvania. 

Read more about this event: 

Governing: Pennsylvania Begins Unprecedented Sealing of Millions of Criminal Records

Pennsylvania Capital Star: Under Pennsylvania’s landmark Clean Slate law, 30 million criminal records are now eligible for automatic sealing

KYW Newsradio: Pa. to automatically seal 30 million criminal records as part of Clean Slate law