I believe the Sacramento Bee newspaper article that you are referring to was under the "Back Seat Driver" heading and was in reference to ticket masking for serious violations such as DUI's.

In this article a DMV analysis from 1998 and in 2004 were mentioned that found a certain amount of motorists motorist were able to get serious violations expunged from their driving records.

Since the California Department of Motor Vehicles was cited as the reporter of these analysis and reviews you should contact them directly to see if you may receive a copy of these reports. You may first want to search their website to see if they are listed there for download since the CA DMV has a pretty comprehensive site.