HB 1115 rewrites Missouri law governing first-degree murder sentencing and creates a new automatic expungement system for certain criminal records. On the homicide side, the bill repeals and replaces section 565.030 to set out a two-stage procedure when first-degree murder is tried without a death-penalty waiver: the first stage determines guilt, and a second stage determines punishment. It also specifies when the punishment must be life imprisonment without parole, including when the defendant is intellectually disabled, when no statutory aggravating circumstance is proven beyond a reasonable doubt, when the aggravators do not unanimously outweigh mitigation, or when the trier of fact otherwise declines to impose death. The bill also preserves procedures for lesser homicide convictions and clarifies the definition of intellectual disability for these cases.
The bill’s largest policy change is the creation of a “clean slate” automated expungement process beginning in 2028 for eligible electronic records. Under new sections 610.141 through 610.144, certain misdemeanor and felony convictions not otherwise excluded would be automatically closed/expunged after waiting periods, generally one year for suspended imposition of sentence cases and misdemeanors, three years for felonies, and immediately for some pardon-related cases. The bill also allows automatic expungement for some people age 65 and older with no recent criminal convictions, while excluding juvenile adjudications and motor-vehicle offenses from the automated process. It establishes notice, objection, and court-order procedures involving the Office of State Courts Administrator, prosecutors, the central repository, and circuit courts, and it creates a nonpublic record that remains available to law enforcement and certain government users for limited purposes.
HB 1115 also changes how expunged records are treated in related contexts. It limits consumer reporting of arrests, pending indictments, and convictions to seven years from final disposition and requires credit bureaus to stop reporting records once they learn of an expungement or pardon. It creates liability for willful or negligent noncompliance and allows injunctive relief. The bill further states that employers are immune from liability for claims arising from misconduct tied to an expunged record. Finally, it creates the Missouri Expungement Fund to pay for implementation, system upgrades, and staffing needs associated with the new automated expungement system.
The bill’s impact on state law would be significant: it would replace existing first-degree murder sentencing language, expand and automate expungement procedures, impose new duties on courts and state agencies, and create new recordkeeping and reporting requirements. It would also affect prosecutors, courts, the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the Office of State Courts Administrator, credit bureaus, employers, and people seeking relief from criminal records. Because the automated expungement provisions apply retroactively to electronic records, the bill would potentially affect a large number of existing cases once the system is implemented.
No committee transcript or vote history was provided, so the overall sentiment cannot be measured from recorded debate or roll calls. Based on the bill text alone, the measure appears to combine a tough-on-capital-sentencing structure with a broad, reform-oriented expungement policy. The main likely points of contention are the scope of automatic expungement, the retroactive treatment of older records, the limits on prosecutorial objections, the special treatment of older offenders, and the bill’s changes to death-penalty sentencing procedures and intellectual-disability determinations.
HB 1115 would repeal and replace Missouri’s first-degree murder sentencing statute and add new expungement, consumer-reporting, and administrative-funding provisions. It would require a bifurcated guilt-and-punishment process in capital murder cases and specify when life without parole must be imposed instead of death. It would also create a statewide automated expungement system for qualifying electronic records, impose duties on courts and state agencies to identify, review, and close eligible records, and establish a dedicated fund to pay implementation and staffing costs. The bill would affect criminal defendants, prosecutors, courts, the state highway patrol, the Office of State Courts Administrator, credit bureaus, employers, and people with eligible convictions.
No committee discussion or vote record was provided, so there is no direct evidence of support or opposition from hearings or floor action. From the text, the bill appears to blend two different policy directions: a restrictive capital-sentencing framework and a broad record-clearing reform. That combination suggests the measure could attract support from criminal-justice reform advocates for the expungement provisions while drawing concern from prosecutors, victim advocates, and others wary of automatic record clearing or changes to death-penalty procedures.
The most likely areas of contention are the automatic, retroactive expungement system; the age-65 expungement pathway; the limits on objections by prosecutors and the central repository; and the treatment of restitution, pending charges, and excluded offense categories. Another likely point of debate is the revised first-degree murder sentencing scheme, especially the standards for imposing death versus life without parole and the bill’s treatment of intellectual disability. Stakeholders most likely to object include prosecutors, law enforcement, and victims’ rights advocates, while supporters would likely include criminal-justice reform groups and people seeking relief from old convictions.