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Michigan Legislature approves automatic expungement bills

The process, which would begin in 2023, would be automated — so people convicted of crimes wouldn't have to apply.

Credit: AP

FILE - This Dec. 12, 2012, file photo shows the state capitol building in Lansing, Mich. Michigan's tax revenues this fiscal year will plummet between $3.1 billion and $3.6 billion below prior estimates due to the coronavirus pandemic, economists said Thursday, May 14, 2020, and are projected to fall billions of dollars short in the next budget year, too. The numbers were released ahead of a Friday meeting at which nonpartisan legislative experts and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration will try to get a handle on the budget outlook two months after the crisis hit the state. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan would automatically expunge the criminal records of hundreds of thousands of residents under sweeping “clean slate” bills that received final legislative approval on Thursday.

The process, which would begin in 2023, would be automated — so people convicted of crimes wouldn't have to apply.

RELATED: Grand Rapids clinic offers help to people looking to expunge criminal records

They would be eligible seven years after their misdemeanor sentence and, in the case of a felony, 10 years.

Those with certain convictions wouldn't be eligible. The package also would let people with misdemeanor pot convictions clear the offenses beginning in January if they wouldn't have been crimes before voters’ legalization of marijuana in 2018.

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