Criminal Law Blog
June 22, 2005
Austin Criminal Lawyer Blogs On Why Expunctions Mean Something Now
The Texas Legislature recently put teeth back in the expunction statute. Here’s what happened before, and what the Legislature did recently.
What happened before is this. Many years ago, if you got an “expunction,” that meant that even the records held by law enforcement agencies would have to be deleted or destroyed.
Somewhat more recently, the Legislature goofed, changed the expunction law, and the Department of Public Safety started reading the law to mean that it could “maintain” expunged records.
No more. Senate Bill 166 requires DPS to destroy information that DPS had “maintained.”
If you are really interested (or if you don’t practice criminal law and have trouble getting to sleep), you can read Senate Bill 166 for yourself. The link below will help you search for Senate 166. Just click on the link and type “SB166” in and hit enter.
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlo/legislation/bill_status.htm
Be sure the session shown is the 79th Regular Session, not the 79th 1st Called Session.
If you are in a blog directory and you want to subscribe to my blog, just hit “add,” then left-click on the RSS button below and drag it over to the “add” area. Thanks.
