The New Jersey Supreme Court recently decided a case that related to the state’s expungement statute and its application to public employees. The case involved a public employee who had previously pled guilty to a disorderly persons offense.  The conviction was associated with the public employee’s job responsibility.  The plea agreement require the public employee to forfeit her public employment and barred her from future public employment, as required by  statute.

Years later, the public employee filed an expungement application and contended that, apart from expunging the disorderly persons offense, the order of forfeiture should be expunged as well. The public employee was successful at the trial level and in the Appellate Division. The government, however, took the case to the Supreme Court for further review.

There the Court concluded that the order of forfeiture issue must be severed from the expungement application and stated in essence that the forfeiture of public employment order could not be expunged. In rendering its decision, the Court recognized that,  although the expungement statute must be broadly and liberally applied, there was a countervailing statutory policy that required a forfeiture of public employment, whenever the employee’s illicit conduct “involves and touches” on the public employee’s office.

In short, the Court concluded that while the applicant was entitled to obtain an expungement for the prior disorderly persons conviction, the order of forfeiture would not be allowed.