stating that the primary goal of statutory construction is to ascertain and effect the intent of the legislature
How later courts described this case
- stating that the primary goal of statutory construction is to ascertain and effect the intent of the legislature
- holding trial court’s discretion to summarily deny such a petition is “almost unfettered”
- “The trial court’s discretion is further evidenced by the Legislature’s silence as to ... when a petitioner is or is not ‘entitled to an expungement’ based on information submitted by agency representatives.”
- “We do not believe that the Legislature intended to give the trial court almost unfettered discretion to grant summarily or to deny summarily a petition for ex-pungement without a hearing, only to take away that discretion completely when the court decides to conduct a fact-finding hearing.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
SHEPARD, C.J.,
dissenting.
I think the Court has worked too hard at parsing the expungement statute. The legislature's policy seems apparent enough. When someone petitions to expunge an arrest and the prosecutor stands silent, the trial court shall grant the ex-pungement. When the State believes it would be harmful to the public's interest to expunge and thus objects, the court must decline to expunge where the record re-fleets multiple arrests for real crimes.
While the expungement statute might produce an occasional anomaly, as the Court speculates, there is nothing anomalous about the case before us. Besides his arrest for armed robbery, Arnold has been arrested for drunk driving four times, convicted twice, and violated probation. I conclude that the General Assembly has prohibited expungement under such circumstances.