3094                                                VETOES

of Baltimore. Our responsibility for expungement,
therefore, would not only extend to the three years that
the District Court has been in existence, but would go
back for fifty years or more, and would apply to
literally millions of cases in every part of the State.
In many instances these old court records have been
reduced to microfilm, compounding our expungement
problems. Our correct caseload alone presents problems
enough, for in an average year 85,000 persons will stand
trial on criminal charges in the District Courts
throughout the State, and because this is a court of
first impression, approximately 50,000 of those
defendants will have their cases stetted, nol prossed, or
will be found not guilty. Additionally, many persons are
processed through the District Court who are subsequently
tried in the circuit courts. Expungement ordered by the
circuit courts would, therefore, also impose an
expungement burden on this court.

I am also fearful that the legislative attempt to
exclude motor vehicle offenses from those for which
expungement can be ordered may not have been completely
successful. Section 732 states, in pertinent part:

"Expungement ..... shall not extend to a
violation of any provision relating to the point
system of Article 66 1/2 ... or any other traffic
law or ordinance relating to the point system."

There are may offenses in Article 66 1/2 which bear no
relation to the point system and expungement, therefore,
would apply to those offenses. Further, it can be argued
that since expungement does not apply to "violations" of
point system offenses in Article 66 1/2, it does apply to
those hundreds of thousands of point system cases where,
after trial, a "violation" was found not to have
occurred.

Also of great concern to me is the failure of the
Legislature to adequately set out guidelines to be used
by the judges in determining whether an expungement
petition should be granted. Section 729 (a) states:

"In any case in which a person is charged with
the commission of any criminal or juvenile offense,
and a court grants a judgment of acquittall or the
case is dismissed or the person is found not guilty,
the court, upon the petition of the person charged,
shall order the clerk of the court, and any law
enforcement agency connected with the case, to
expunge all pertinent records for that particular
case, provided, however, that a copy of the petition
shall be served on the state's attorney of the
jurisdiction where the records are located and the
state's attorney shall have thirty days after