(swooshing logo) (gentle upbeat music) - Welcome to At Issue.

Thank you so much for joining us, I'm H Wayne Wilson.

Sometimes in life, a few of us make mistakes and we get caught and there's a record on file.

Even if you weren't convicted, there might be a record on file, and that might preclude you from getting some housing.

It might preclude you from getting a job, but there is a program in place to help those individuals who have found the right path in life, and they need to have expungement or sealing of records.

And we're going to talk about that with a panel of four people who have experienced it and are, let me start by introducing you to Adrian Barr.

Adrian is the Managing Attorney for Prairie State Legal Services' in Bloomington-Normal.

Thank you for being with us.

- Thank you.

- Also with us is Thomas McClure.

Tom McClure is a Legal Studies Director at Illinois State University, thank you.

- Thank you for having me.

- Vera is here, Vera Traver is a former client of Prairie State Legal Services, and is now on the board of directors there.

Thank you for joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

And fourthly McKenna Plotner McKenna is a student at Illinois State University in the expungement clinic, and she is going to go off to law school next year.

So we thank you for joining us as well.

- Thank you for having me.

- Let me start with Adrian because I'm going to guess by saying expungement and sealing, we probably need to have a definition before we go any further.

- Yeah, so each state has different rules and in Illinois there's two sort of category categorizations of criminal record relief.

So expungement is the deleting of the criminal record.

So the police, the state's attorney, the Illinois State Police, the FBI, all will have to delete that record if the record is expunged.

Sealing is different and sealing is the hiding of the criminal record from public view.

So in those situations, most employers cannot see the criminal record it's sealed, but law enforcement and the court systems could look at it after it's sealed.

- So are there certain crimes that could not be expunged or could not be sealed?

- The difference between expungement and sealing is that non convictions can be expunged.

So a crime where someone wasn't ultimately convicted and convictions where someone is found guilty or pleads guilty can only be sealed.

So that's the difference of the relief.

- And would that apply to all crimes or are there, I mean, for instance, cannabis, can cannabis just disappear?

- Yeah, so a lot of minor cannabis cases now can be expunged, even the convictions because of the change in the law and bigger cannabis cases can be sealed.

The types of cases that cannot be sealed if you're convicted, are domestic violence related cases, sex offense cases, other than prostitution charges, crimes against animals, and we don't see many of those.

I actually haven't seen one yet.

So abusing an animal or a dog fighting, something like that.

And then DUIs and reckless driving also for the most part, can't be sealed.

- The audience didn't have an opportunity to see this, but when we were talking about cannabis being expunged and Vera is over here doing a little clap.

(laughing) You made some mistakes earlier in life.

- Yes.

- Did that affect you in terms of your ability to get a job?

- It has affected me from getting a job and, I don't know what I was to say, (mumbles) comes up.

It has affected me for getting a job, one particular job that I really give one a lot and that I did have, and then I was denied for the job because of my background.

- So you went through the process, you, how did you learn about Prairie State's program and how did it go?

- So at the time I was a case manager for whatever, YWCA, Labyrinth Outreach for Women.

And I was taking our ladies who have been formerly incarcerated to look at getting their record expunged or sealed and then a light came, Ladwel came on.

And I thought like, I need the same services that I am trying to connect my clients with.

So I sat down and I went through the process and it was life changing.

- I'm gonna ask you about that in just a moment, but first I want to turn over to the ISU component here.

Tell me a little bit about why you decided as you're a law professor.

You said, how did you connect with Adrian and say, can we help you with expungement and sealing of records?

- Sure, I'm a licensed attorney as well as a professor at an undergraduate institution, not a law professor at a law school, and I'd done some volunteer pro bono work for Prairie State.

And one of the things that I thought would be really helpful to our students is if they could do some actual work on cases that would help the community.

And I think that getting pro bono going on early in your undergraduate years is something that's gonna carry through when they later enter the field as paralegals or as attorneys.

So I approached Adrian a couple of years ago about the possibility of Illinois state helping with expungements.

And he was very supportive.

And then I, as part of my sabbatical project started researching it and started visiting programs across the country and then came up with the plan.

- And his request was very timely as it turns out.

- Yes, yes.

We had been building a program for expungement and sealing with the help of State Farm's Law Department and it was going along great.

We were having great success.

And then when COVID hit, it really put a, made that program, which was a clinic form where we'd all get together in a room or in an office and work on people's files and meet with them and get those requests filed.

COVID put a dampener on that 'cause we couldn't get together and so we needed the volunteer help, and we were having a hard time working out what to do.

But through the discussions with Tom, we had an avenue to serve those clients with volunteers.

- Do you supply the case or cases to Tom and then he distributes them to students?

- Yeah, my staff and I, and I work closely with a paralegal in my office.

She is talking to clients who need the help.

So social service providers in the community referred to us word of mouth now because we've helped so many people, friends who have, people who've been helped by our project, tell their friends about it.

And so they'll call our office and we'll start the process, take an application and then, when the case is ready to be referred, we'll refer those cases along to Tom.

- And then Tom, when you get those cases, how do you distribute those, if I may use that term, to the students, for them to actually go through the process of putting together a request?

- Sure, I work with three different mitigation professors and their students.

I've got 37 students I work with.

And after I give out an introductory lecture, I have each student fill out a confidentiality form before I can assign them a case.

And basically the order in which I receive the confidentiality statements back, is the order in which I distribute the cases.

So I get a case from Prairie State and then I send it to the next student on the list.

- Okay McKenna, you were assigned this past fall, early fall, you were assigned a case.

Without getting into the specifics, what was the process like, how did you benefit from this?

- So basically I get the Illinois State Police report, the, all the reports and documents from Prairie State, I get those from professor McClure and then I do my own research and I figure out if these records qualify for expungement or sealing, and then I fill out a case chart and I send them back to professor McClure and we kind of go from there.

Getting to do hands-on experience like this has been really rewarding for me and getting to know that my work doing this, I know it's for a class, but getting to do this real life hands-on work, helping someone's life get better and have a fresh start, it was a very rewarding.

- So is that part of the, the importance of this is that you are going to go to law school.

- Yes.

- This gave you a taste of reality.

And also that I'm actually helping somebody.

- Definitely both of those things equally, I would say.

- May I turned to Adrian and if you have some numbers you could share with us Adrian, in terms of how successful is this program?

How many people really need this service and how many times can you get an expungement or sealing of records?

- So there is a lot of need.

There are a lot of people who've accumulated criminal records in our communities and those old criminal records, even if people have turned over a new leaf are holding them back from employment opportunities.

And so we have an office in Bloomington, which is where I work.

And then also an office here in Peoria, which is, and we serve the counties, central Illinois counties.

So in our Bloomington office, we were able to talk to 472 people and give them advice.

And of those 472, we were able to help 292 of them seal over 800 criminal, sorry, seal or expunge over 800 criminal records.

In our Peoria office, they've been able to talk to and help over 1500 people, and of those 1500 people 617 people have had over 1900 criminal records, expunged or sealed.

So it's been a really successful program.

And what's been fun about it is I've seen how individual, I've given you the big numbers, but individual people's lives have changed dramatically after getting this relief.

- And one of those people of course, is sitting right next to you.

What, when you learned that, and I'm sorry, were you expunged or sealed?

- Both.

- Both, okay.

- Yes.

- So when you learned that what's, can you put in words the feeling that occurred inside of you?

- Actually, it was really hard to put it in words, because I feel like a spiritual experience happened.

It was the undescribable freedom, a feeling of freedom.

Having all of these felonies hanging over my head is something that I felt that I would die, just while having these felonies.

I did not make the kind of money where I can go into courts and like fight for myself to try to get this record expunged or sealed.

So having Prairie State come into my life and help me sort all of this out, because it was a lot to sort out, was definitely, it was life changing.

It has helped me definitely with my self esteem, life-changing.

- You heard her Adrian, how do you feel when you hear that?

- You know it's really, it's really made me love the work we're doing in the community more than, more than I can explain.

We've helped a lot of people go and I've talked to people who've been unable to get jobs or have been working temporary jobs.

And then six months after we've helped them have full-time jobs with benefits and are above the poverty level, are doing quite well for themselves.

Just hearing those stories has really reignited my passion for what we're doing here and working with good people like Tom, it's been great.

- It occurs to me Tom, that there's a good portion of society that has been restricted because of a previous error in life.

Do you know how big of a problem it has been in terms of how many people were restricted from moving on in life because of that small error?

- From what I've read, there are 30 million people in the United States who have criminal records.

That's almost a third of the adult population.

So it is it's massive.

As far as how many people have not been able to move forward, I don't even know whether there's statistics like that.

That would be very difficult to measure, but there's definitely an impact it has on society.

- So the same question I asked of Adrian and Vera, how did you feel when you see a case move forward?

- Well, I am, since I'm an attorney, I compartmentalize things.

I'm looking at trying to get everything done, and I'm trying to get everything done in as close to the form it needs to be and to be filed in court.

So I'm looking at as a technician.

And so from my point of view, I'm seeing that we are making strides, big strides, in order to produce these pro bono results for Prairie State.

So sometimes because I'm dealing with the hard files, I'm not seeing the human part of it.

And I'm wondering if I could ask you this Vera, would you be willing to come to my class to talk to the students?

- Absolutely.

- Because I would love for them to be able to see the effect that it has on a human being, because sometimes we lose that when we're working on the paperwork, but certainly I do feel great satisfaction that we're doing something that's very valuable.

- You talked a little bit about it before McKenna, but are there forms you have to fill out, I mean you do some research find out what the case was and whether it qualifies for expungement or sealing, are there forms that you have to turn in to Tom, or is it a recommendation or how's that work?

- Yeah, so initially I fill out a case chart, which would have all my clients charges and everything that I would have to look up that would consist of their arrests, their, what they were charged with, what I think, quality, what, they would qualify for expungement or sealing.

And then after I get the initial forms done, I send them to him and he sends me, he directs me to fill out like direct court forms, like notices and orders for the sealing or expungement that I sent back to him and he sends to Prairie state.

- So Adrian, when you get those forms, there are specified forms that the court requires?

- Yes, there are specific uniform forms that the Supreme Court asked that we use.

- And then which court makes the decision as to, yes, this is worthy of expungement or sealing.

- Yeah, so you have to file for relief in the county that the criminal record is in, and then the state's attorney and the Illinois State Police and the local law enforcement have a chance to object if you're asking to seal or expunge a record, that they have the chance to object to that.

If there's no objection in McLean County, then the files passed along to the judge and the judge will generally review the file.

And if the judge feels that it qualifies, grant the relief.

if there is an objection, then it's set for a hearing and there's a trial essentially.

- So a circuit judge is the deciding person.

- Yes, a local county circuit judges.

- Tom, let's go back to ISU.

When, in this program started three years ago for you?

- Right.

- Okay.

How did you propose it to ISU?

How did you say this fits into our mission?

- Well, what happened was, I first started it as a pilot in a litigation class that I was teaching.

So it was something where I was just basically volunteering my time to make it happen as part of the curriculum for that class.

I did it as an extra credit project, because quite honestly, I didn't know how it was going to turn out.

And I realized at the end of the semester that it was a whole lot more work than I ever expected it would be.

I was literally working on finalizing documents for Prairie states on New Year's Eve, two weeks after finals ended.

And that's when I went to my department and I said, I think that we need to do something that's bigger than what I'm doing in the class.

So my department chair met with the Dean and the provost of ISU, and we propose this as a way that the university could help fulfill its mission of civic engagement.

And we got support from the provost office to provide a course release so that I would be able to work with more students to make this happen.

And the provost was very supportive of that.

And it's made a commitment to us for a couple years.

So that's how that happened.

And the fact that we were selling it along the lines of what was so important to the university on civic engagement, I think is what convinced the provost, that this was the right thing to do.

- I'm a little remiss in asking about a certain type of case when I asked you for definitions at the start of the program, Adrian, but would this apply to juvenile records as well?

- There is a process to expunged juvenile records, and we have not been doing that as in volume because those records tend to not prevent employment because they're already impounded because the, because of the nature of the kid being under 18, so they're already hidden.

And they usually don't result in employment.

- Are there some cases that you, someone comes to you and said, hey, I did this and I'd like, get my record expunged or sealed and you say no?

- We would say no in a few cases.

So in some cases, the cases just not eligible either the time, the waiting period hasn't passed in, which is a three-year waiting period after the last sentence or the case is ineligible.

So we'd say no in that situation.

Otherwise if the case is eligible, we would say, yes, I could say saying, no if we knew the person was currently committing crimes, they just weren't being held accountable for them, but that's never occurred.

- Well, in that regard, is there a timeframe, I mean if someone committed a crime 10 years ago versus 12 months ago.

- Right, yeah, so the waiting period to seal a conviction is three years after the sentence ended.

So someone has to essentially stay out of the criminal justice system for three years after their last sentence ended.

There is a way to waive that waiting period if someone obtains a certification or a degree during their sentence.

So if they're on probation for 24 months then they get job certification or a GED, they could potentially ask to seal that right after their sentence ends.

- McKenna, when you started at Illinois State University, this program didn't exist actually.

How fortunate do you feel that you're able to do something of this nature?

This is, basically this is pro bono work, and this is part of being an attorney, that you might, and I assume, you might not have had this exposure otherwise.

- I definitely wouldn't have been able to do something like this if it weren't for ISU starting this program.

I mean, I've only been at ISU for three years.

And so to know that I've been in like the entire infancy of having this program at ISU is a really cool, and I feel very lucky to get to be a part of it and do something like this.

- Tom, do you have any idea how many colleges, universities may have something similar to this.

- At the law school level, there's quite a few.

At the undergraduate level, it is a very small number.

At one time I knew what the numbers are, but I know it's growing a little bit, but I would say that it would be less than 50.

Maybe even less than that, I don't know exactly.

- But it's not commonplace.

- Not at all.

- Vera I'd like to, in the closing moments we have, you are now a board member.

- Yes.

- So let's, we know that you went through as a client, but how do you feel as a board member as you watch these people benefit?

- I feel like that it is definitely a privilege that I get to seek out other people to find their same freedom that I found in this.

And I get to just encourage people like, there is a way out and there is some hope.

So just that I get to feel like today I am a hope pusher.

I just feel like that that is such a privilege, and I am totally honored.

- Now Adrian, does it help to have someone like Vera who is a former client on the board?

- Yeah, having Vera's perspective on our board helps guide our decisions.

Really, we are there to serve our clients and Vera has been a client and dealt with issues that our clients deal with.

So that's been a huge help.

And then just having her voice in the community as a community leader, telling people about the work we're doing, lets people know they can come to us for help.

So it's been wonderful to have her help.

- Are you the only former client who's on the board?

- No.

- Well, so there's several that you can rely on to say to clients, Vera and so-and-so had been through this.

They can hold your hand so to speak.

- Yeah, we serve, we have a big footprint, 36 communities.

So we, luckily we have Vera and one other client board member from Bloomington, but then others from the other areas we serve too.

- Well, our half hour is concluded.

So I wanna say thank you to all four of you.

First of all, to Adrian Barr, who is the Managing Attorney at Prairie State Legal Services in Bloomington-Normal.

Two, Tom McClure, Tom is the Legal Studies Director for Illinois State University.

Vera Traver, or a former client, but more importantly, board member of Prairie State Legal Services and to McKenna Plotner who is a senior at Illinois State University and has benefited from the program that Tom McClure started just three years ago.

Thank you to all four of you for joining us on At Issue.

And we'll be back with you next time on At Issue when we're going to be talking about redistricting in Illinois.

Yes, the maps are out and yes there are complaints as you might well imagine.

We're going to talk about the process of redistricting for politics in Illinois on the next At Issue.

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