By Tess Cohen
Advocates for criminal justice reform are celebrating as Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Clean Slate Act into law, making millions of New Yorkers now eligible to have their criminal records automatically sealed. Before the new law was signed, New York only allowed special categories of people to apply to seal their convictions based on an expensive and time-consuming application to a state judge.
Now, a person will have their conviction automatically sealed if they meet the following criteria:
- It has been three years (in the case of a misdemeanor) or eight years (in the case of a felony), since the person was released from prison or their sentence was imposed (whichever is later). In other words, if they did not get a prison sentence, the time begins on the day of sentencing. If they did get a prison sentence, the time begins after they are released.
- They have not been convicted of a crime during that three or eight year period in New York.
- They have not been convicted of a felony during that three or eight your period in another state.*
- They do not have an open case in New York and do not have an open felony in another state.*
- The person is not currently on probation or parole for the crime that would be sealed.
- The person is not convicted of a sex offense.
- The person is not convicted of a class A felony (except drug-related class A felonies which are eligible for sealing).
Once a conviction is sealed, it won’t appear on a background check when someone applies for a job or housing, except when a person is required by law to submit to a fingerprint background check as part of the hiring process—such as when they apply to work in a school.
The economic impact of this law for many New Yorkers will be huge. A single misdemeanor conviction has been shown to drop lifetime earnings by 16%. The impact of convictions on individuals, families and communities—especially in over-policed communities of color—is a multi-generational ripple effect of economic loss. The Clean Slate law is an important step towards ameliorating this effect. It cannot undo the years of economic loss that predate the law, or undo the lost opportunities between conviction and sealing, but it at least provides a path forward that opens up job opportunities for the millions of New Yorkers convicted of crimes many years ago.
Advocates have been relentlessly pushing this reform for years and their hard work has paid off. But concessions had to be made to get the law signed.
First, the new act does not expunge prior records, which means some people—particularly law enforcement—will still have access to people’s old convictions. Many of our clients have faced discrimination by police because of prior convictions and even prior arrests that have not resulted in conviction. These problems will not end since the sealing law does not extend to internal police records. The law also allows those hiring for certain sensitive positions to be able to see prior convictions
Second, some crimes are exempt. Any crime that requires a person to register pursuant to the New York Sex Offender Registration Act cannot be sealed, even when a person is eligible to be removed from the sex offender registry.
Class A felonies also cannot be sealed (except for class A drug felonies). Class A felonies in New York include: Murder in the First Degree, Murder in the Second Degree, Kidnapping in the First Degree, Arson in the First Degree and Conspiracy in the First Degree.
Still, this is a big win, especially in a climate where even maintaining hard-fought criminal justice reforms is difficult and misinformation about crime and reform is rampant. Fundamentally, the new law says that New Yorkers deserve a second chance, that a conviction should not be an unrelenting albatross no matter how many years have passed since they committed a crime, that one action does not have to define the rest of a person’s life.
ZMO Law thanks the many advocates who have improved the lives of so many of our clients and millions of other New Yorkers with the passage of Clean Slate.
*If the felony conviction or pending felony in another state is related to marijuana or receiving gender-affirming care, than it will not prevent the sealing of a New York conviction.