The state Supreme Court has reaffirmed a decision that bars the Pennsylvania State Police from challenging expungement orders, holding that the Criminal History Records Information Act does not apply to the agency and that little has changed in the legislation since the high court’s previous decision.
Justice Debra Todd wrote for a 6-1 majority that the court’s decision in J.H. v. Commonwealth, 759 A.2d 1269 (Pa. 2000), which limited the right to such challenges to county district attorneys, was dispositive in the present case. Further, Todd wrote, the Legislature had nearly a decade to correct what it may have believed was a “judicial misinterpretation,” but did not. Because of that fact, “a strong presumption arises that our Court’s prior holding in J.H. that the State Police lacks standing to challenge an expungement order is the view of the Pennsylvania legislature as well,” Todd wrote.
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