Despite 2023 law, eligible Louisiana residents must still petition and wait to clear old criminal records instead of sealing them automatically, like 14 other states do.
A long line had already formed outside the New Orleans expungement clinic by the time Izell Mayes arrived, around 8:15 that morning.
“Standing in line was the hardest part,” Mayes said. “Everything else was easy.”
More than a decade after Mayes completed his short sentence for a nonviolent crime, old criminal charges kept showing up in background checks, costing him full-time positions that he’d applied for and even the chance to drive for a ride-share company.
“There’s a lot of jobs that I wasn’t able to get because of that conviction,” Mayes said.
As part of its work helping people transition back into the community after incarceration, The First 72+, a nonprofit, hosted an expungement clinic in mid-July, where lawyers helped Mayes complete the paperwork that will eventually clean his record. He left pleasantly surprised.
“I didn’t even know it was possible to take it off,” he said.
But first, Mayes had struggled for roughly 10 years, missing out on jobs and housing because of his conviction. That wouldn’t happen in the 14 states that have implemented “clean slate” laws to automatically seal eligible electronic records, sometimes within a month.
It also shouldn’t be happening in Louisiana, where the legislature passed the Clean Slate Act in 2023. But automatic expungements couldn’t begin because of the state’s technology, which doesn’t yet have the right connections between courts and law enforcement to make the process possible.
Until Clean Slate Act is implemented, petitions for expungements continue
For now, eligible Louisiana residents must continue to individually petition for expungement — a process that takes six months to a year to show up in background checks for six months to a year, even after the expungement is granted, according to Sherie Thomas, executive director of the Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana, which works to eliminate obstacles to opportunity – like unexpunged records – for people impacted by the criminal justice system.
Some more serious violent charges can never be expunged. But many minor or nonviolent convictions can be cleared. Once the system is fully implemented in Louisiana, the timeline from application to expungement could be reduced to about 90 days, Thomas said.
For Clean Slate implementation,
– Sherie Thomas, executive director,
the computers for law enforcement
must be properly linked to the courts.
“Until that process is complete,
we have been at a standstill.”
the Justice & Accountability Center of Louisiana
Those who have experienced a clean-start expungement say that, after serving prison time or a term of probation, it allowed them to make a fresh start.
In Michigan, for instance, Elvina Smith went to an expungement clinic in April of 2023 hoping to expunge her record. Instead, a paralegal told her she qualified for Michigan’s Clean Slate law and that her record could be cleared automatically. In subsequent years, that led to better housing and a job at a university, she said, remembering how, within weeks of the clinic, her felony and misdemeanor convictions were cleared from her record.
“I got a printout, and it was just like nothing on the page but my name, birthday, address,” Smith said. “I’ve never been so happy to see nothing.”
Seven years of trying, to pass and implement a clean slate system
In 2019, the effort to pass a Clean Slate Act began under then-Rep. Ted James (D-Baton Rouge) and later advanced to passage under Sen. Royce Duplessis (D-New Orleans). After four years of work in the legislature, the Clean Slate Act passed through both legislatures and was signed by Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2023, becoming law as Act 454.
As the act outlined, people could begin submitting requests to automatically seal eligible records as of Jan. 1, 2025. But the Act’s implementation was contingent on “the appropriate funding necessary for implementation and provided for in the executive budget for Fiscal Year 2025-2026.” And the state hasn’t yet allocated money to pay for the critical technology.
“We got a bill that has passed. So we got the law. Now we just need the resources to get it funded,” said James.
The state has made progress connecting the systems, putting Louisiana closer to automatic record sealing. But the technology is not yet ready for a complete clean-slate implementation. “Until that process is complete, we have been at a standstill,” Thomas said.
James introduced Louisiana’s first Clean Slate proposal in 2019 after watching lawmakers in Pennsylvania pursue a similar approach. He’d seen how Louisiana’s slow-moving, bureaucratic expungement process prevented people from finding jobs and rebuilding their lives, he said.
“It was a mixture of me just seeing other legislators across the country doing it and knowing just how cumbersome and expensive the process in Louisiana — it is a barrier to economic development and jobs for people,” James said.
Initially, the concept was seen simply as criminal justice reform. But after supporters showed through testimony and data that it was a serious economic issue, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle embraced the proposal. “Basically, we had to change the conversation,” James said.
The Clean Slate Act would help people support themselves and their families after completing their sentences, he said. “You could make a mistake in Louisiana and still be someone who could provide for your family.”
The bureaucracy of expungement
Many people who qualify for expungement never complete the process because they don’t know they’re eligible, or because the costs are too high, said Sarah Whittington, a former attorney with the Justice & Accountability Center.
“The system itself has just thrown up so many barriers to make it nearly impossible for a lot of folks,” Whittington said.
Louisiana’s expungement process requires individual petitions that are reviewed by multiple agencies before a judge can sign an expungement order.
“If you’re not eligible for a fee waiver, the cost is $550 in the state of Louisiana, which is the most expensive in the country,” she said. “And that’s $550 per arrest incident.”
It’s also difficult to understand whose charges can be expunged. “The barriers that a lot of folks are going to face are confusion over paperwork, not knowing exactly what’s on their record or when or if they become eligible,” Whittington said.
For instance, Louisiana does not automatically seal marijuana offenses, she said, though the state legislature in 2023 passed a bill making it easier to expunge weed-possession charges. While the city of New Orleans has prospectively pardoned certain municipal marijuana offenses, those pardons do not automatically clear a person’s criminal record. People generally must still seek an expungement under state law when they are eligible.
Advocates say that automatic record sealing is the proper response. But to implement it would require funding and coordination across multiple state agencies. It also might take a change of mindset, especially in the Southern region, where states have historically focused on punishment over redemption. Of the 14 states that have clean slate laws, only one – Virginia – is in the South.
For Mayes, the road to sealing his records began with knowing the opportunity exists.
“Number one thing is, if you’re not educated on something, you will never know,” Mayes said.
Still, Thomas said, misconceptions about criminal records continue to create barriers, even for people whose charges were dismissed. “People are under the misconception that because they were not convicted of the actual charge, or if the case was dismissed, that it does not appear on their record,” she said. Much of this confusion would be eliminated if the Clean Slate Act could only be implemented.
For now, Mayes has the promise of a clean record. It will likely take up to a year, Thomas said, before the revised record shows up in background checks.
