The New Jersey State Police’s headquarters is in West Trenton. (Dana DiFilippo | New Jersey Monitor)
New Jersey State Police must process expungement orders within four months under an agreement the agency signed to settle a 2023 class-action civil rights lawsuit over its sometimes yearslong delays in removing expunged criminal offenses from background checks.
Settlement terms, announced Thursday, require new transparency and accountability measures that require the agency to create a website where people petitioning for expungements can track their requests. State police will also be required to submit monthly reports for 18 months to the state public defender’s office and a mediator on expungement processing statistics, as well as publicly post the data.
The settlement comes 17 months after the public defender’s office sued over the agency’s mounting backlog of unprocessed expungement orders.
Expungement requests rose after New Jersey lawmakers in 2016 and 2019 expanded eligibility for people to clear minor drug infractions and other low-level, non-violent offenses from their records. State police subsequently fell up to two years behind — lagging even four years in a few cases — in processing expungement orders, with 46,000 unprocessed expungement orders by the time the public defender’s office sued.
That failure meant that police have illegally disclosed criminal histories that judges have ordered sealed to potential employers, landlords and others who run background checks, costing people jobs, housing, professional licenses and other opportunities, the lawsuit said.
Under the terms of the agreement, state police have until June 1 to get both the backlog and new expungement orders processed within 90 to 120 days. In cases where processing stalls because state police determine they’re missing information, the agreement requires the agency to notify petitioners and their attorneys and prioritize processing once the additional information is provided — rather than forgo processing the order at all, as had been their practice, said Fletcher Duddy, assistant public defender.
“When we filed this lawsuit, we were inundated with people contacting us saying, ‘I got an expungement six months ago, a year ago, two years ago, I still can’t get a job. I still can get an apartment. I’m homeless, I’m unemployed, I’m about to become homeless. Please help me,’” said Deputy Public Defender Michael Noveck, lead attorney for the plaintiffs.
He added: “Today, we finally have an agreement that is going to ensure the prompt processing of expungement orders within three or four months after the state police received them, so that people who get an expungement can, within a reasonable period of time, move on with their lives free from the criminal past that has been expunged in accordance with New Jersey law.”
The settlement comes after months of mediation before former state Supreme Court Justice Jaynee LaVecchia. The lawsuit is expected to be dismissed by September 2026, as long as the agency complies with agreed-upon terms.
More than 260,000 people have applied for expungements in New Jersey since April 2020, as of Feb. 1, according to court data. Most petitions were granted, with about 9,500 pending, 7,300 withdrawn, and 3,200 denied, the data shows.
A majority of expungements are people looking to clear their criminal records of dismissed charges, while the rest involve convictions, Noveck said.
“This agreement reaffirms our steadfast dedication to helping individuals move past their mistakes and build brighter futures for themselves and their families, ensuring that they no longer face the obstacles of a past record that has long been expunged,” Public Defender Jennifer Sellitti said in a statement.
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