Eddie was struggling. He was almost back on track after two DWI convictions – now over a decade behind him – but he was having a hard time putting together the final pieces for his new life.
“The doors were closed for the things I was trying to do,” he says.
He couldn’t land the jobs he was seeking. He couldn’t get the apartment he was trying to rent. And without those foundations, he couldn’t build toward the future he saw for himself.
“All of them wanted background checks,” he says. “I’d take my chances, and they’d tell me no.”
After nearly 14 years of closed doors, a chance meeting with an old friend provided a vital key. “She said, ‘You need expungement,’ and handed me a flyer for an event at the library,” says Eddie. “It was a blessing.”
Expungement is the process by which people can seal their criminal conviction records from public view with a judge’s approval. All lower-level criminal convictions – like petty, misdemeanors, or gross misdemeanors – are eligible for expungement. There are also 53 felony convictions eligible for expungement, including drug and theft related convictions. An applicant needs to satisfy a crime-free period (the length of which varies based on the level of the original conviction) to get the benefit of expunging their records.
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The Minnesota Attorney General’s office operates an expungement program led by Assistant Attorney General Nilushi Ranaweera. The program works with 83 of the 87 Minnesota counties (Blue Earth, Hennepin, Ramsey, and Washington counties have their own programs), as well as every city attorney office in the state.
“Anyone who has a criminal conviction in Minnesota can log into helpsealmyrecord.org and submit a very easy application,” says Ranaweera. “Our team will review it and see whether their cases are eligible for expungement.”
After identifying cases that can be expunged, Ranaweera and her team work with prosecutors to determine their openness to expunging cases via the “stipulation” method – in which the prosecutor’s office that charged the original case will have the discretion to stipulate for an expungement. Once the prosecutor agrees to stipulate for an expungement, the Attorney General’s office drafts and files paperwork with the courts requesting that expungement. If the judge agrees, the case is sealed.
Since the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office launched the program in 2020, the office has expunged over 630 cases.
“If people have eligible cases, we reach out to them and ask them why they want their cases expunged,” says Ranaweera. The reasons often line up with Eddie’s: landing a job, renting an apartment, getting approved for a home loan, and going back to graduate school are common goals for people seeing expungement.
“There are other reasons we hear, things we take for granted,” says Ranaweera. “Parents who want to chaperone a school field trip with their kid, but can’t get through the background check because of a 15-year-old misstep in their life.”
“We heard from a man who wanted to visit Canada with his grandson for a hockey tournament, but an old conviction came up at the border and he couldn’t cross.”
These stories and life goals are helpful in conversations with prosecutors, says Ranaweera. “We take this information to the prosecutor and say, ‘yes, this person has a conviction, but he or she is not the same person they were then.’”
If the prosecutors agree to a stipulation, the same information is shared with the judge who makes the final decision on expungement. “Their background, how they’ve changed, what they want to accomplish – these stories can be persuasive,” says Ranaweera.
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The flyer from his friend led Eddie to an expungement clinic – an event where people can speak with legal experts to determine whether their cases may be eligible for expungement and get guidance on how to initiate the process. The Minnesota Attorney General’s office is kicking off a statewide Clean Slate Tour of expungement clinics, beginning this month in St. Paul.
At each clinic, attendees can review their criminal record with someone trained in the expungement process. “They can talk through which cases are eligible, and which are not, and which cases prosecutors may be likely to agree to expunge,” says Ranaweera. Each attendee also gets detailed guidance on how to submit an expungement application on helpsealmyrecord.org.
“Sometimes at the clinics, people just want to tell their side of the story,” says Ranaweera. “Sometimes they see us as government people who don’t understand what they’re going through. When we can give them a listening ear, that helps to change their perspective on the whole justice system.”
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Applications submitted to helpsealmyrecord.org are reviewed by Ranaweera and her rotating team of up to 15 law students – a team that Ranaweera sees as the future-looking aspect of the program. “They’ll be lawyers soon,” she says. “And getting this experience will make them better defense attorneys or prosecutors in the future. When they’re offering a deal to a defendant or accepting a deal on behalf of their client, they’ll know what the endgame for that charge is. If you don’t know how expungement works, you might end up giving some bad advice to your client.”
Right now, the Statewide Expungement team is working through over 7,300 applications – a big task for a small team. And though Ranaweera credits her law students for doing the heavy lifting, her division manager Joan Eichhorst knows Ranaweera deserves her fair share of kudos.
“Nilushi oversees 15 externs every semester – training them in, and reviewing their work,” says Eichhorst. “She does the intake, does the initial analysis, and she’s been doing that for the four years since she started this program and operationalized it from the ground up.”
“It’s an enormous job, and she inspires me every single day.”
For her part, Ranaweera is right where she wants to be. “This is my dream job,” she says. “From the beginning and for the past four years, I’ve had the same excitement every day.”
Eddie, too, is getting closer to where he wants to be. He submitted his application for expungement after visiting the clinic, and six months later his record was sealed. Soon after, he landed an apartment, and was approved for work as a delivery driver.
He’s now working on getting his GED, the final step toward launching his new career as a certified peer specialist, where he’ll assist people with their re-entry into community after incarceration.
“It’s something I know I can do – help people not make the mistakes I made,” says Eddie.
“I think that’s my calling.”
To learn more about expungement or the Clean Slate Tour, click here.