Malady & Wooten has been a leader in reforming Pennsylvania’s criminal justice system.  Our accomplishments include:

• Enacting criminal record sealing by petition (Act 5 of 2016).

• Negotiated civil asset forfeiture reform with the District Attorney’s Association to create due process and restoration of civil liberties in forfeiture cases (Act 13 of 2017).

• Working with the Justice Action Network, created and lead a bi-partisan coalition as Pennsylvania became the first in the nation to enact a Clean Slate law, which automatically seals certain criminal records.  More than 40 million cases and 60 million records have been sealed to date (Act 56 of 2018).

• Working with the Innocence Project, negotiated long sought-after changes to the Post Conviction Relief Act and DNA statutes to enable claims of innocence to be given a fair hearing and testing (Act 147 of 2018).

• Eliminated automatic driver’s license suspensions for drug related charges (Act 95 of 2018).

• Enacted automatic expungement for acquittals and automatic record sealing for all pardons so they are removed from a person’s record (Act 83 of 2020).

• Eliminated the requirement that all fines and fees must be paid to be eligible for clean slate record sealing (Act 83 of 2020).

• Enacted occupational licensure reforms which eliminated automatic lifetime bans and required licensing boards to only consider offenses directly related to the profession and the threat to public safety (Act 53 of 2020).

• Unanimously enacted legislation to retroactively eliminate driver’s license suspensions for drug related charges (Act 107 of 2022).

• Expanded Pennsylvania’s Clean Slate law to include low level, non-violent drug felonies as eligible for sealing, reduced the waiting period for sealing misdemeanors and summary offenses; and created a process to automatically expunge pardons.  (Act 36 of 2023)