Court Opinion

ID: 9538015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:28:33.794342+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:57:18.554637
License: Public Domain

HOWE, Associate Chief Justice
(dissenting):
I dissent. The majority opinion reaches its result by indulging in generalities about what expungement statutes “generally” provide, based largely on a law review article which was written more than two decades before the enactment of the Utah statute. Instead, the majority should have focused on the wording of our statute and the significant legislative history behind that wording.
The expungement statute which is under examination in this case, Utah Code Ann. § 77-18-2 (Supp.1985) (amended 1987), was enacted in 1980. It is set out in full in the majority opinion. Prior to 1980, our ex-pungement statute was numbered section 77-35-17.5 (1978). In that statute, there was a subsection 1(c), which provided:
Upon the entry of the order in those proceedings, the petitioner shall be deemed judicially pardoned and the petitioner may thereafter respond to any inquiries relating to convictions of crimes as though that conviction never occurred.
(Italics added.) In 1980, the legislature amended the statute by deleting entirely subsection 1(c) and in its stead enacted a new subsection (3), which provides:
Employers may inquire concerning arrests or convictions only to the extent that the arrests have not been expunged of the record of convictions sealed under this provision. In the event an employer asks concerning arrests which have been expunged or convictions the records of which have been sealed, the person who has received expungement of arrest or judicial pardon may answer as though the arrest or conviction had not occurred.
(Italics added.) Other minor changes were made in the statute which are not pertinent here and the section was renumbered 77-18-2.
It is readily apparent that the effect of the 1980 amendment was to narrow the class of persons to whom the convicted person could represent that he or she had never been convicted. Prior to 1980, the convicted person could “respond to any inquiries relating to convictions of crimes as though that conviction never occurred.” After 1980, however, that privilege was limited to only inquiries made by employers. As the majority opinion correctly points out, the legislature’s intent was to assist convicted persons in obtaining em*496ployment. To any employer who inquired about arrests or convictions, the person could legally answer “as though the arrest or conviction had not occurred.” But as to all other persons who were not employers or prospective employers, the legislature did not extend that privilege. One can search the statute in vain for any privilege the convicted person has to deny arrests and convictions to anyone but employers and prospective employers.
The majority glides over this glaring change in the statute by observing that the record of arrest and conviction is sealed and can be inspected only upon court order upon petition by the convicted person and only by him. That is true, but that does not limit persons other than employers from making inquiry to the convicted person of his criminal records. P.O.S.T. is not interdicted by the statute since P.O.S.T. is not an employer or a prospective employer. Thus, P.O.S.T. is free to inquire of the petitioner as to any prior arrests or convictions. Since the statute no longer gives her the privilege to answer to P.O.S.T. “as though that conviction never occurred,” she has no privilege to deny her prior arrest and conviction when asked. P.O.S.T. cannot directly inspect her records but can do so only through her. She may refuse to disclose her conviction and may refuse to allow P.O.S.T. to inspect her records. Those decisions are hers alone to make. However, P.O.S.T. may also be able to deny her certification. Whether P.O.S.T. could do so, in view of all the facts, is not ripe for decision since P.O.S.T. has not yet acted on her application for certification. Certainly, P.O.S.T. may not act arbitrarily in this matter.
The majority incorrectly assumes that since the records are sealed and can only be inspected upon permission of the petitioner, this forecloses P.O.S.T. from making an inquiry. That is an incorrect interpretation. Persons other than employers may inquire about prior arrests and convictions but can inspect records only through the applicant and with the applicant’s permission. Thus, the majority’s argument that employers could “circumvent the statute by utilizing other institutions and agents to obtain information” regarding expunged offenses and the inspection of sealed records is completely unfounded. No one can inspect the records without the permission of the convicted person.
The majority also slides over the “employer provision” in the 1980 statute without explaining why the legislature would uselessly amend the statute by adding a subsection prohibiting inquiries by employers when they, according to the majority, were already prohibited, along with everyone else, from inquiring. It was not done just to emphasize the lack of right by an employer to inquire, as the majority suggests, since the provision giving the convicted person the right to answer “any inquiries ... as though that conviction never occurred” was deleted from the statute at the same time. The majority simply ignores that deletion.
I join with the majority in its laudatory remarks concerning the rehabilitation of the petitioner. From as early as the return of the prodigal son as recorded in the New Testament, families and mankind in general have always rejoiced when one who has strayed returns to the fold. It may well be too, as the majority points out, that the petitioner has paid a debt to society far greater than she may have incurred. However, despite her commendable performance, it is the legislature’s prerogative, and its prerogative alone, to write and enact an expungement statute and to determine the bounds of its beneficence. The legislature in 1980 spoke in clear and unmistakable terms and limited the effect of an expungement to inquiries made by employers. No such limitation was placed upon a state licensing agent such as P.O.S.T. which licenses persons who work in a sensitive area where great public interest obtains. There is a wide difference between the need for inquiry as to past arrests and convictions when hiring a person as a laborer, carpenter or sales person and when the person is being hired as a peace officer. The legislature could have reasonably decided that when a person applies for P.O. S.T. certification to become a peace officer, his or her complete past records may need *497to be examined despite repentance and ex-pungement. Great trust and responsibility is placed in our peace officers. Public interest demands that persons so certified and hired have impeccable qualifications. This may well include scrutiny of the major events in a person’s background.
The conclusions which I have reached in this opinion accord with the interpretation given to our 1980 statute by Chief Judge Aldon J. Anderson in Thompson v. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, 557 F.Supp. 158, 167 (D.Utah 1982), where he correctly observed that the statute did not universally erase prior convictions. In his opinion in that case, Judge Anderson observed:
There is no explanation in the legislative history for the changes in the amended statute, nor have there been any cases construing the new statute. The new language, especially when construed in light of the former language, seems to place a limitation on the effect of the judicial pardon and ex-pungement. Though the legislative intent is not entirely clear, the court must conclude that the statute was changed for a purpose; and that purpose, from the substance of the change, evidently was to limit the effect of a judicial pardon and expungement. Hence, since 1980 a judicial pardon and expungement under section 77-18-2 is not a complete and unqualified expungement that erases the prior conviction sufficiently to relieve petitioner Thompson from his firearms disabilities.
(Italics added.) By ignoring and disregarding this significant legislative history, the majority misconstrues the statute and interprets it as if the 1980 amendment had never been made. I would reverse the trial court.
STEWART, J., concurs in the dissenting opinion of HOWE, Associate C.J.