This case is the first to address New Jersey’s 2016 drug court expungement law, which offers the broadest expungement under state law. As an incentive for participation in the drug court program, the law allows successful graduates to seek expungement of their entire criminal record, provided the record does not contain certain barred offenses. The ACLU-NJ filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that the provision on barred offenses should not be interpreted expansively. In addition, the ACLU-NJ argued that the devastating effects of collateral consequences mean expungement of criminal records is presumptively in the public interest. The ACLU-NJ explained how criminal records lock people out of opportunities, inhibit the exercise of their freedoms, disproportionately impact people of color, fuel mass incarceration and harm society more broadly.
