In re Expungement of Arrest-Charge Records of T.B., 236 N.J. 262 (2019). Today, the Supreme Court issued its first opinion of 2019, a unanimous ruling by Chief Justice Rabner. The matter involved three consolidated cases. The defendants in those cases pled guilty to third-degree offenses, went into the Drug Court program, and successfully graduated from that program. They each then applied to expunge their entire records under N.J.S.A. 2C:35-14(m), the 2016 Drug Court expungement statute.
The Law Division granted those applications. But the Appellate Division reversed in an opinion reported at 451 N.J. Super. 391 (App. Div. 2017). That court observed that the statute “expressly imports” a “public-interest” test, and the panel placed on defendants the burden of meeting that test and providing relevant plea and sentencing transcripts and pre-sentence reports in order to justify expungement. The Appellate Division relied on In re Kollman, 210 N.J. 557 (2012), a case under the general expungement statute. The Supreme Court granted certification, reversed the Appellate Division, and remanded for reconsideration of defendants’ expungement requests.
Chief Justice Rabner agreed that the statute contains a public interest test. He also recognized Kollman, but found expungements under the Drug Court statute distinguishable from other expungements. Drug Court “is different,” he said, because “[b]ased on the program’s intensive supervision, coupled with weekly team conferences about active cases and regular court appearances by defendants, judges and other members of the drug court team become quite familiar with each participant.” This “rigorous monitoring,” as well as the Drug Court expungement statute’s “overall policy in favor of expungement for successful graduates,” a policy that the Chief Justice explained in great detail, and the language of the statute that says that judges “shall grant” expungement unless certain exceptions apply, entitled Drug Court program graduates to a rebuttable presumption that expungement is consistent with the public interest.
The Court stated that, unlike under the general expungement statute, there is no need in the Drug Court expungement context for defendants to present transcripts or pre-sentence reports. Under the general regime, judges considering expungement have little or no knowledge of their own regarding a moving defendant, so those documents are essential.
In contrast, “[f]or the same reasons that warrant a rebuttable presumption in those cases, we conclude that successful drug court graduates are not required to provide copies of all relevant transcripts and reports when they ask the drug court judge to expunge their records.” Drug Court judges already know the defendants and their backgrounds. Judges still have the option to review transcripts and pre-sentence reports, but the Chief Justice anticipated that “drug court judges will rarely need dated transcripts and reports after having closely supervised an applicant for years.”
Today’s opinion contains a lengthy and very useful discussion of Drug Court, its background, its goals,and its successful track record to date. It is well worth reading in full.