SAN JOSE – As he stood in the midst of the courtroom, Gabriel Ornelas Garcia instructed Santa Clara County Superior Court docket Choose Erica Yew that after an arrest in 2018 — capping a rap sheet of 9 convictions for drug, theft and gang crimes courting again to his teenagers — he was decided to interrupt the cycle.
“I vowed never to return,” Garcia, 29, stated on a current October morning
With the assistance of his household, together with his spouse, Amanda, and his now-1-year-old daughter, Garcia petitioned for his felony file to be cleared.
There to assist him was the Report Clearance Venture, an undergraduate authorized clinic that operates out of San Jose State College. The distinctive program duties felony justice college students with serving to folks expunge their felony information as they rebuild their lives. Analysis has discovered that hardly greater than 5% of individuals search the authorized aid inside 5 years of changing into eligible.
“I just assumed people knew the general possibility that they could clear their records,” stated venture founder and veteran felony justice teacher Peggy Stevenson. “The information was just not out there. … People just don’t know, and it makes all the difference in the world.”
This system began in 2008 as a category venture for Stevenson’s college students in a category on Courts and Society. Since its inception, greater than 1,000 college students have participated, working with legal professionals to stipulate the total scope of an individual’s life, from the circumstances of their crimes to their rehabilitation.
An array of conviction sorts may be eligible for expungement — and lots of qualify for computerized clearance, so long as a consumer has accomplished their parole or probation. Different convictions require a choose’s approval, which is the place the scholars’ work is available in to provide a petition for assessment.
This system boasts a 99% success charge on greater than 2,000 expungement petitions. The wire-to-wire expungement help is on the market just for Santa Clara County Superior Court docket convictions, although employees will information individuals who have out-of-county information.
Outdoors the courthouse, Garcia exhaled.
“Goodbye to my past, welcome to my future,” he stated. “It’s not impossible. But it takes a lot of courage and determination.”
With the assistance of Want E-book donations, this system will help others like Garcia who’re searching for a second likelihood in life.
Later that very same day, Stevenson, college students and employees visited the Elmwood girls’s jail in Milpitas to speak to girls in custody, most of whom are eligible for expungement.
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They have been joined by Nancy Torres, who recounted greater than three a long time of a life clouded by heavy drug use, abusive relationships, and a life on the road that tallied up 68 felony and misdemeanor prices.
Nancy Torres talks to girls in custody on the Elmwood girls’s jail in Milpitas, Calif., Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, relating her experiences within the felony justice system and the way she acquired her felony file expunged with the assistance of the Report Clearance Venture run out of San Jose State College. (Karl Mondon/Bay Space Information Group)
On the verge of turning 50 years previous, she put herself by detox and acquired work at a Goodwill job coaching program. However her historical past hampered any try and advance.
She was in a sober residing facility and mentored by Diana Carreras, a longtime mentor with the Report Clearance Venture and former consumer, who launched Torres to this system.
They stated they might assist. And in 2021, like Garcia, she sat in entrance of Choose Yew and listened as every of her 68 prices have been dismissed.
“She said, ‘expunged, expunged, expunged,’ and I’m sitting there and I’m crying, feeling that weight off my chest,” Torres, 52, stated in an interview. “I could walk out without looking around my back anymore.”
Again on the jail, she proudly instructed her viewers about the place she is now: lead supervisor at a neighborhood sobriety program and facility, and taking each alternative from the Report Clearance Venture to unfold the phrase.
Nancy Torres talks to girls in custody on the Elmwood girls’s jail in Milpitas, Calif., Friday, Oct. 18, 2024, relating her experiences within the felony justice system and the way she acquired her felony file expunged with the assistance of the Report Clearance Venture run out of San Jose State College. (Karl Mondon/Bay Space Information Group)
“It’s awesome to give back, to share my life with somebody and say, ‘Hey expunge it, because there is a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow,’ ” Torres stated.
Stevenson can even boast about how her brainchild has produced generations of scholars heading into careers in legislation and social work who’re imbued with this system’s restorative spirit.
“Doing this life-changing, profoundly positive work, and having students be able to accurately see they have been the force that made this difference is so rewarding,” Stevenson stated. “I just love to step back and watch them do what they are trained to do, and worked hard to learn to do.”
Adriana Vazquez-Chavez, a 25-year-old San Jose State pupil, was in Choose Yew’s courtroom alongside classmate Cristal Ortiz to look at Jesus Navarro, who was related to the courtroom by way of video stream from Mexico, witness the expungement of a 1996 tried homicide conviction that led to his deportation.
Adriana Vazquez-Chavez, a pupil assistant with the Report Clearance Venture, holds fingers earlier than embracing Carmen Navarro, whose son was cleared of previous convictions, at Household Justice Middle in San Jose, Calif., on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024. (Shae Hammond/Bay Space Information Group)
The clearance of his file has given his household hope that he can sooner or later reunite with them within the Bay Space.
Vazquez-Chavez and Ortiz helped persuade the courtroom that Navarro was now not the person he as soon as was. She desires to pursue a profession as a felony prosecutor, drawing on her expertise with this system to instill extra empathy into an integral a part of the justice course of.
“They tend to have the most power, and if I’m able to have an impact, I can vouch for more rehabilitation and plea deals rather than harsher sentences,” she stated.
Omar Arauza, 27, a San Jose State alum attending the UC Faculty of the Regulation, San Francisco, can be an aspiring felony prosecutor — and has interned on the Santa Clara County District Lawyer’s Workplace — and says his expertise with this system “makes perfect sense” together with his profession path.
“My work with the RCP, I don’t think of it as contrasting. It’s complementary,” he stated. “It was a very nuanced experience. … I needed that experience to gain important insight, skills and perspective that I want to carry on in my work.”
On the opposite aspect of the courtroom aisle, Ruben Souza-Marquez, 26, a contemporary graduate from the Santa Clara College College of Regulation, says his time with the Report Clearance Venture helped him discover a trajectory to his analysis clerk internship with the county Public Defender’s Workplace.
“The program really inspired me to pursue criminal defense work,” he stated. “The skills I learned in RCP really helped me to understand people’s situation better and try and negotiate these better outcomes.”
Laura Wright’s time with this system unlocked her life in ways in which embody elements of each Torres’ expertise and that of the scholars. Wright, 45, remembers watching the RCP presentation on the Elmwood jail a decade in the past whereas she was in custody for drug and theft crimes.
After launch, she began attending neighborhood faculty, held down a job and did volunteer work. Then with Stevenson’s assist, she acquired her felony file cleared.
She turned a mentor for this system, transferred to Cal State Monterey Bay and earned a bachelor’s diploma in social work. She began working with Group Options in Morgan Hill as an advocate for sexual assault survivors.
Final yr, she earned a Grasp of Social Work diploma, and now works full time at Group Options; she goals to qualify for full-time remedy work in two years.
“There’s a lot of stigma and a lot of barriers that come with any kind of criminal record,” Wright stated. “I was very lucky to meet Peggy. Her program is life-changing.”
She will’t wait to get others to comply with her.
“The full-circle goosebumps moment was two years ago when I went back to the (Elmwood) dorm. I told them, ‘I was here locked up, that was my bed over there,’ ” Wright stated. “To see the hope on their faces, it’s just amazing.”
Gabriel Ornelas Garcia stands for a portrait after he was cleared of his previous convictions at Household Justice Middle in San Jose, Calif., on Friday, Oct. 18, 2024. (Shae Hammond/Bay Space Information Group)
WISHDonations to The Report Clearance Venture at San Jose State College will assist present authorized illustration, mentoring and different help to over 1,000 low-income folks, primarily of coloration, who’ve been impacted by the felony justice system. Aim: $50,000
