Imagine getting a copy of your police record to apply for a new job and finding it shows an arrest for a crime you didn’t commit.
It happens more often than you think, according to attorney Casey Payton, the executive director of a new non-profit, Virgin Islands Justice Initiative. The prosecutor may determine not to pursue the case, or it may go to court and end in acquittal, but the arrest can still appear in the record.
Even when an arrest leads to conviction, it is not necessarily indicative of a person’s character. It may be a one-time infraction, totally out of character for the person whose record still carries the blemish years later.
Theoretically, it’s relatively easy to get a bureaucratic mistake or a single misdemeanor expunged from your record. But it can be confusing for the uninitiated and expensive for those who hire a lawyer.
Document costs and filing fees add up to about $275 and if the person hires an attorney, the legal fee will typically be in the range of $1,500 to $3,000, Payton said.
If you don’t get an expungement, “That arrest is going to stay on your record forever,” she said. And it can affect your life in many ways, including limiting employment and housing options.
That’s why the V.I. Justice Initiative has made a Clean Slate program an early priority of its mission to provide some free legal assistance to those in need.
There are no income eligibility requirements for the service, Payton said.
“We don’t turn anybody away. If they say they can’t pay, we accept that,” she said.
“Most of what we see,” Payton said, involves arrests for things like disturbing the peace, simple assault, and negligent driving. So far, the oldest arrest the organization has erased was from 1999.
Currently, the agency handles only single-arrest expungements and those involving old arrests for things that are no longer illegal, such as the possession of a small amount of marijuana. It doesn’t tackle second convictions or pardon-related work, she said.
In its first year of operation, the organization completed expungements for 20 individuals, Payton said. And that’s just a start. Applicants are likely to increase as the group becomes better known.
The brainchild of a group of Virgin Islands lawyers, the Justice Initiative was formed as a non-profit, 501(c) 3, in June of 2022 and began operations Sept. 1, 2022. According to its website, it is steered by a three-member board – Jalicha Persad and attorneys Alex Golubitsky and Ronald W. Belfon – as well as three special advisors, all attorneys, Joseph A. DiRuzzo III, J. Russell B. Pate, and Melanie Turnbull.
Combined, they have considerable experience in legal defense work.
Payton said the organization tries to fill the gaps that existing entities serving the indigent can’t address. As a privately funded organization, the Justice Initiative does not have all the restrictions that locally or federally funded agencies may have.
“It’s not a competition,” she said. Rather, the Justice Initiative partners with other organizations in several ways. It receives referrals from the courts, from the Police Department, and from both legal services and the Office of the Public Defender.
Besides “Clean Slate,” the organization lists three other programs on its website: legal research and data support, systemic change advocacy including high-impact litigation and class action suits, and engaging, networking and partnering with the community.
Some of that work has started and some is still in the planning stages, according to Payton.
She said the group is coordinating with the Public Defender’s Office on training residents to “Know Your Rights.” The public defender has reached out in the past to high school students to educate them about legal rights and protections, she said. Now the two agencies may expand the outreach to public housing communities.
On another front, the Justice Initiative wants to sponsor an Independent Review Board data collection to document legal needs in the community. They are hoping to partner with the University of the Virgin Islands on that project.
The group is also discussing various possibilities for high-impact litigation, she said. That is a lawsuit aimed at correcting a systemic injustice and thereby affecting many people.
From its inception, the Justice Initiative has been active in making itself known in the community. Representatives have testified at the Legislature in favor of expungement laws. They’ve taken their message to the airwaves and into the schools. Most recently, the organization sponsored a youth art contest focused on justice.
And for the second year, it is sponsoring the Harvest Festival and Pumpkin Patch, a family fun day at Magens Bay, featuring tractor rides through the arboretum, a sand-box styled corn pit for the little ones, music, free dental screenings for children, performances by dancers and majorettes, information on the partial solar eclipse that will take place that afternoon, 41 vendors, and pumpkins, pumpkins, pumpkins.
The festival runs from noon to 5 p.m. Oct. 14. Last year was the inaugural festival and it drew an estimated 1,000 participants, Payton said, adding she is expecting a much bigger crowd this year.
