Second Substitute House Bill 1982 amends RCW 9.96.060 and makes related changes referenced to RCW 2.70.020 and 2.70.023. It expands the existing vacatur procedure so that courts can withdraw guilty pleas or set aside guilty verdicts, dismiss charging documents, and vacate judgments and sentences for qualifying defendants. The bill specifically allows members of federally recognized tribes to apply to vacate misdemeanor, gross misdemeanor, or felony convictions for offenses alleged to have occurred while exercising treaty Indian fishing, hunting, gathering, or pasturing rights, with applicants including family members or official tribal representatives for deceased persons, and with one statutory pathway requiring a court finding that a state or local government has been enjoined from enforcing the law to the extent it interferes with treaty rights. The bill also adds other vacatur pathways: people convicted of misdemeanor cannabis offenses who were age 21 or older at the time may apply for vacatur; convictions for specified drug-related offenses must be vacated if the person completes approved substance use treatment or diversion assessments and demonstrates six months of substantial compliance; and a family member of a homicide victim may apply to vacate the victim’s prostitution conviction under RCW 9A.88.030. When a conviction is vacated under these provisions, the person is released from penalties and disabilities from the offense, the vacated conviction is generally excluded from criminal history for future sentencing, and the person may state they have never been convicted of that crime for purposes such as employment or housing applications, subject to specified exceptions (for example, limited rules about vacated domestic violence convictions, firearm-restoration provisions, and recidivist-charging rules for convictions vacated on or after July 28, 2019). Court clerks must immediately transmit vacatur orders to the Washington State Patrol and local agencies for update and transmission to the FBI, and vacated convictions may not be broadly disseminated by those agencies except to criminal justice agencies. The bill assigns the Office of Public Defense director responsibility to administer specified state-funded defense and related services and, subject to specific appropriations, to provide access to counsel and representation services for people eligible to seek vacatur under these rules, with eligibility priorities and reporting duties set out. Actions to file motions to vacate and appear in related proceedings must comply with Washington admission and practice rules, the rules of professional conduct, chapter 42.52 RCW, and office policies. Important portions of the bill text are not included in the provided material: the full pasturing provision cuts off mid-sentence, the specific amendments to RCW 2.70.020 and 2.70.023 are not shown, subsections referenced elsewhere in RCW 9.96.060 are missing, and any newly created section referenced in the bill caption is not present, so some procedural and definitional details are unclear from the excerpts given.

If enacted, more people will be able to clear certain criminal convictions and have them removed from public criminal history: tribal members with convictions tied to exercising treaty fishing, hunting, gathering, or pasturing rights (and in some cases family or tribal representatives for deceased people), people with certain misdemeanor cannabis convictions who were 21 or older, people who successfully complete specified substance use treatment/diversion programs, and a family member of a homicide victim seeking vacatur of the victim’s prostitution conviction. Practically, qualifying individuals will likely face fewer collateral consequences when applying for jobs or housing, will be released from many penalties tied to those convictions, and courts must trigger immediate record updates that the state patrol, local agencies, and the FBI must process and limit public dissemination of — although firearm restoration and some domestic-violence-related uses of vacated convictions remain exceptions, and vacated convictions after July 28, 2019 can still count for certain recidivist charging rules. The agencies that will see the biggest operational and budget impacts are state and local courts, prosecuting offices, the Washington State Patrol and local law enforcement records units, the FBI (for updated transmissions), and the Office of Public Defense. Courts and law enforcement will need to process more vacatur orders and update records immediately; the Office of Public Defense is directed to provide counsel and related services to eligible people but only "subject to availability of appropriated funds," with new reporting and prioritization duties that likely increase workload and require funding decisions. Some details are incomplete in the provided text (full pasturing provisions and certain subsections and RCW amendments are missing), so the exact scope of cases, administrative costs, and staffing needs cannot be fully determined from these excerpts.