Amend the bill, as and if amended, by adding an appropriately numbered SECTION at the end to read:
/ SECTION __. Article 9, Chapter 22, Title 17 of the 1976 Code is amended by adding:
"Section 17-22-970.
(A) Notwithstanding another provision
of law, after five years for a nonviolent offense and ten years
for a violent offense, as defined in Section 16-1-60, if the
charge or charges have not been disposed of, a person may apply
to the appropriate solicitor's office with jurisdiction over the
offense and request all charges be removed from the person's
public record maintained by the State Law Enforcement Division
(SLED).
(B) Upon receiving such
application, the solicitor's office must research whether there
was a disposition of the charge within the time frames specified
in subsection (A). If the solicitor finds that there has been
no disposition of the charge and either five or ten years have
passed, as applicable, the solicitor's office shall provide
written notice and request that SLED remove the charge or
charges from the person's public record maintained by SLED. Upon
receipt of the notice from the solicitor's office, SLED
immediately must remove the charge from the person's public
record. The provisions of Section 17-1-40 regarding retention
of a nonpublic record by municipal, county, or state law
enforcement agencies apply to records of charges expunged under
the provisions of this section. And, this nonpublic record is
not subject to release pursuant to Section 34-11-95, Chapter 4,
Title 30, the Freedom of Information Act, or any other provision
of law.
(C) A fee may not be
charged pursuant to the provisions of this article or any other
provision of law by the solicitor's office or SLED for
researching charges against a person or removing charges from a
person's public record pursuant to this section, even if the
research shows that there was a disposition of the charge.
(D) No person who has a
charge removed from his public record maintained by SLED
pursuant to this section may be charged with perjury for later
stating that he was never charged with the offense. Removing a
charge from a person's public SLED record pursuant to this
section is intended to put the person back to the legal status
he was in prior to the charge.
(E) Neither a
solicitor's office nor SLED, nor any other state or local agency
or authority, may be held liable to a person for damages caused
by charges that are removed from a person's record pursuant to
this section." /
Renumber sections to conform.
Amend title to conform.