The Fresh Start Act of 2025 amends Section 106(b) of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (34 U.S.C. 40302(b)) to authorize federal grants to States for implementing 'covered expungement laws' and modernizing criminal justice data infrastructure that enables automatic sealing or expungement of records. The amendment inserts a grant purpose into an existing federal program, defines 'automatic' expungement, and establishes reporting obligations for grantee States.
This matters because it creates a federal funding pathway tied to operationalizing large-scale, automated relief for people with eligible records while producing standardized, disaggregated data for oversight. The statutory language bars delay of sealing or expungement due to nonpayment of fees or fines and requires the Attorney General to publish annual nationwide data—shifting the focus from law reform alone to the technical systems needed to make reforms work at scale.
At a Glance
What It Does
Amends 34 U.S.C. 40302(b) to add grant authority allowing the Attorney General to fund States to implement automatic expungement or sealing laws and to modernize records infrastructure. It adds statutory definitions for 'automatic' and 'covered expungement law' and creates annual reporting duties for grant recipients.
Who It Affects
State criminal justice agencies, court clerks, records repositories, and state IT systems that maintain conviction and disposition data; reentry and legal-aid organizations that monitor or assist eligible individuals; and the Department of Justice, which will administer grants and publish the required reports.
Why It Matters
By tying federal grant dollars to operational requirements, the bill moves policy emphasis from passing expungement laws to delivering the technical capacity needed to carry them out automatically, exposes implementation through disaggregated reporting, and creates a single place (DOJ) for annual public data on the scale and equity of automatic sealing.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
The bill modifies the grant purposes in Section 106(b) of the Brady Act so that states can receive federal funds specifically to implement laws that provide for automatic sealing or expungement of criminal records. Practically, that means the Attorney General can award grants to modernize databases, automate matching and sealing workflows, and connect courts, law enforcement repositories, and agency systems so eligible records can be processed without manual intervention by the affected person.
To make the grant purpose workable, the statute adds two key definitions. 'Automatic' means the sealing or expungement happens without any action required by the eligible person. A 'covered expungement law' is a state law that provides for such automatic relief, allows the State to set any procedural requirements it chooses, preserves access for courts and law enforcement to the sealed material, and explicitly prevents delays to sealing based on failure to pay fines or fees.
That last element is intended to remove financial conditions as a barrier to relief.The bill also imposes reporting obligations on states that accept grants. Each grant year, a grantee must report to the Attorney General the number of individuals eligible for automatic relief, the number whose records have been sealed or expunged annually, and the number of pending applications—each disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and gender.
If the State cannot produce required data elements, it must submit a plan within one year of its first grant year to obtain as much of the missing data as possible. The Attorney General must publish an annual public report compiling the data submitted by states.Although the text creates a targeted grant purpose and reporting framework, it leaves several operational matters to later action: the bill does not appropriate funds, set grant criteria or matching requirements, prescribe technical standards for interoperability, or define which convictions qualify under a State's 'covered' law.
Those implementation choices will determine how uniformly and quickly automated sealing is adopted across jurisdictions.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill amends Section 106(b) of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (34 U.S.C. 40302(b)) by adding a grant purpose to 'implement a covered expungement law.', It defines 'automatic' expungement or sealing as relief that occurs without any action required from the eligible individual.
It defines 'covered expungement law' to require automatic sealing or expungement, allow State procedural conditions, preserve court and law enforcement access to sealed material, and prohibit delay because of unpaid fines or fees.
States receiving grants must report annually to the Attorney General on (a) the number of individuals eligible for automatic relief, (b) the number whose records were sealed or expunged, and (c) the number of pending applications—each disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and gender.
If required data elements are not available, a grantee must submit a comprehensive plan within one year of its first grant year to obtain the missing data, and the Attorney General must publish an annual public report compiling the states' submissions.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Short title
Provides the Act's name: 'Fresh Start Act of 2025.' This is purely nominal but signals congressional intent to tie the measure to reentry and record relief initiatives.
Adds grant authority to implement covered expungement laws
Inserts a new grant purpose (subparagraph (E)) into the Brady Act's Section 106(b)(1), explicitly allowing the Attorney General to award grants to States to implement covered expungement laws. Practically, that attaches a federal funding mechanism to what are traditionally state-controlled record-sealing policies, giving DOJ a role in financing the technical work—data modernization, automation, and systems integration—needed to make automatic relief operational.
Defines 'automatic' and 'covered expungement law'
The bill adds statutory definitions: 'automatic' means relief occurs without any action by the eligible individual; 'covered expungement law' means a state statute that provides for automatic sealing or expungement (subject to state-imposed requirements), maintains access to sealed material for courts and law enforcement, and disallows delays based on failure to pay fees or fines. These definitions establish baseline policy guardrails while leaving scope, eligibility criteria, and procedural specifics to state law.
Annual state reporting and DOJ publication
Requires grantee States to report annually to the Attorney General, under DOJ guidance, on: (i) how many people are eligible for automatic relief; (ii) how many records have been sealed or expunged annually; and (iii) how many applications remain pending—each dataset disaggregated by race, ethnicity, and gender. If a State cannot compile required elements, it must submit a plan within one year of its first grant year to acquire the missing data. The Attorney General must publish the collected data in an annual public report. These provisions create federal visibility into implementation and equity outcomes but do not specify audit or enforcement mechanisms for data accuracy.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Criminal Justice across all five countries.
Explore Criminal Justice in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- People with eligible criminal records — They benefit from systems designed to seal or expunge qualifying records without requiring them to initiate or pay for the process, reducing administrative and financial barriers to relief.
- State IT and records offices that secure federal funding — States that win grants gain resources to update legacy systems, automate workflows, and reduce manual processing backlogs.
- Reentry and legal-aid organizations — Standardized, publicly available data on eligibility, outcomes, and pending cases will help advocates target services and measure whether reforms reach marginalized groups.
- Policymakers and researchers — The mandated, disaggregated data set will provide a consistent evidentiary base to evaluate equity and scale of automatic expungement across participating states.
Who Bears the Cost
- State criminal justice agencies and court clerks — They must design, procure, and maintain interoperable systems, adapt local workflows for automation, and compile the required disaggregated reports, which entails staff time and technical expense not fully spelled out in the bill.
- Smaller or rural jurisdictions — Jurisdictions with limited IT capacity may struggle to meet technical and reporting expectations and could face higher per-capita costs to modernize systems.
- Department of Justice — DOJ will incur administrative costs to establish grant guidelines, monitor compliance with reporting requirements, and publish the annual public report; the statute does not include appropriation language for these activities.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill balances two legitimate aims—speeding relief and reducing barriers for individuals with eligible records, versus maintaining accurate, accessible criminal-history data for courts and public-safety purposes—and leaves unresolved how to reconcile rapid automation with the safeguards, technical standards, and oversight needed to prevent errors, uneven rollouts, or privacy regressions.
The bill creates a federal funding route for operationalizing automatic expungement but leaves essential implementation choices unresolved. It does not appropriate funds, set eligibility criteria for grants, define which convictions qualify for automatic relief, or prescribe technical standards for data exchange and security.
Those omissions mean outcomes will vary with how DOJ structures grants and how states interpret 'covered expungement law' in practice. The requirement that sealing not be delayed for failure to pay fines or fees removes a common statutory bargaining chip for jurisdictions—but the bill permits States to impose other procedural requirements, which could reintroduce barriers in different forms.
The reporting regime improves transparency but raises practical and analytic questions. Race, ethnicity, and gender disaggregation is useful for equity audits, yet the statute provides no standards for how those categories are collected, reconciling differing state practices, or addressing missing or inconsistent records.
The one‑year plan requirement for unavailable data creates a deadline but not consequences for persistent gaps. Finally, preserving law enforcement and court access to sealed records while rolling out automated sealing requires careful access controls; sloppy implementations risk either overexposure of sealed information or accidental removal of data needed for public-safety screening (including systems tied to background checks).
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.