Forsyth courts move to expunge thousands of teen crime records

North Carolina's law known as the Second Chance Act makes expungement of certain juvenile crimes automatic as of this month, but some much older adults from Forsyth County will also soon benefit from the changes.

Among them, the law allows district attorneys to expunge past records of people who committed crimes as teenagers. Previously anyone eligible to have those charges erased would have needed their own lawyer.

Forsyth County court leaders took that opening and identified about 30,000 people eligible to have their records of those crimes wiped clean. They went as far back as 1975, which makes some of those once-juvenile offenders now in their 60s. Others are young enough to still be teens. 

Forsyth District Attorney Jim O'Neill says people should not have to be burdened for a lifetime over non-violent crimes they committed as teens.

“When they now apply for a job, they don't have to list something that happened to them when they were 16 or 17 years old,” he says. “They can go out and get a fresh start and really embrace what the term ‘second chance' means.”

The expungements are for some misdemeanor and low-level felonies. None were for violent offenses. Many involve drug crimes.

O'Neill says the process to remove the records will likely take months. 

He says the effort to clear so many cases would not have been possible were it not for the work of Clerk of Court Denise Hines and her staff.