Centering around the case of Demonta Antonio Hall of Milwaukee, the Wisconsin Department of Justice must expunge arrest records of people who aren’t charged from its criminal database. Hall was arrested in 2015 for possession of an electronic weapon, but he was not charged by prosecutors. At the time, he had an outstanding warrant for a traffic citation, which he paid. He was arrested again in 2017 for second-degree sexual assault, for which he, again, was not charged. At the time of the second arrest, he had an outstanding warrant for disorderly conduct, for which he was fined. When he asked the Justice Department to expunge the weapon and assault arrests from his file, he was told it was not possible because all arrests and convictions had been fused into one file in its criminal database. Hall sued in 2017, demanding the department expunge the weapon and assault arrests and the County judge agreed. Upon appeal, the 2nd District Court of Appeals sided with Hall, finding that state law plainly says that anyone who is arrested but not charged is entitled to have the record of that case expunged from the database.
