Public defenders, advocates, state and city leadership cheered Thursday afternoon at a gathering at the Crissy Field Center as three San Franciscans spoke about their journeys through the criminal-justice system and how a 25-year-old expungement program, known as Clean Slate and championed by the San Francisco Public Defender’s office, has altered their lives.
One of those residents is 65-year-old Patty Peraza, who emigrated to the United States from Guatemala when she was 11, and had a charge related to a domestic dispute with her husband. Last year, the charge was finally expunged from her record.
Although Peraza was never convicted, the charge remained on her record for 30 years, and it followed her across the world. Every time she flew to and from Guatemala with her family, she said she would face interrogation and harassment from immigration officials. It also prevented her from completing the steps to obtain U.S. citizenship. Last year, she approached the office to get the charge expunged. In April, she received her citizenship and can vote.
Asked why she didn’t pursue expungement earlier, she said she didn’t think she could afford it. “I was looking at my kids’ education. I was going to school. I said I cannot afford it, so I guess I can live with it … and I was so unhappy, and trying to do my best,” Peraza said.
Finally, after facing interrogation during a trip with her grandchildren, she approached the office.
According to Saun Hough, California Partnerships Director with Californians for Safety and Justice, criminal histories make it difficult for people to re-enter the workforce and find housing, reducing California’s GDP to the tune of billions of dollars annually. But having a record affects people in less straightforward ways, too. Criminal histories can bar people from joining unions, getting professional licenses and degrees, joining HOA boards, working with youth, and more. The re-criminalization carries a lasting psychological effect. “It’s the everyday, small reminders of the scarlet letter that will never let you forget,” he said.
Formed by Public Defender Jeff Adachi in 1999, the Clean Slate program created a unit of attorneys whose focus is to help San Franciscans expunge past convictions, charges and arrests from their criminal records, regardless of whether they can afford an attorney.
Clean Slate has assisted nearly 60,000 people since then, said San Francisco’s current Public Defender, Mano Raju, with a success rate of some 80 percent.
Deputy Public Defender Kelly Pretzer, who manages the program, said that Clean Slate remains unique, and more programs like it are needed. “I think it was pretty revolutionary at the time, and honestly continues to be something that a lot of offices strive for but maybe aren’t able to implement,” she said.
In California, expungement means that criminal arrests, charges, or convictions that are still visible in court records or during background checks can be “reduced, dismissed, sealed, vacated, or destroyed,” according to SF Public Defenders. Since 2019, updates to the statewide expungement system through AB1076 and SB731, which automated the expungement of certain records and expanded the types of convictions that can be automatically sealed, have made California’s process one of the most expansive in the country.
San Francisco Supervisor Ahsha Safaí presented a certificate to the attorneys on behalf of the Board of Supervisors at Thursday’s ceremony.
Pretzer told stories of clients, including a human trafficking survivor whose drug and prostitution-related convictions still came up in background checks through her work in public health; a man who fled Cambodia in the 1980s, whose PTSD-related drug use left him with convictions that made him eligible for deportation to a country he hadn’t lived in for 40 years; and a woman who was denied a job working with incarcerated youth, based on a 50-year-old nonviolent drug conviction.
“Our clients are just trying to do things like gain lawful immigration status, get a job in public service, take their kids on field trips, and prepare people in custody for life on the outside. They go to law school, open their own businesses, become caretakers for disabled family members,” she said.
“People want to work. They want education. They want to give back. They want to live in safe and thriving communities. They want to know that they are not defined by the worst thing that has ever happened in their life.”
Lucian, an artist and community organizer who wished to be identified by a pseudonym, struggled to fundraise for social projects after he was assaulted on the street in San Francisco. The person who punched him in the face walked across the street to a police officer and claimed Lucian had assaulted him, and he was charged with a violent crime. Security camera footage exonerated him, but the charges didn’t disappear from his record once they were dropped in January 2022. Expungement has allowed him to continue helping communities across the globe through fundraising work. “The majority of those things would not have been possible if it wasn’t for Clean Slate,” Lucian said.
Others, like DiJaida Durden, have simply put in the hard work to bounce back from mistakes, and need a fresh start. “One thing I learned throughout my life is that accountability makes you understand what you’ve done wrong, and what you need to do when you move forward in life,” Durden said.
Durden, a mother of three, said she turned her life around for her children. She worked in cement masonry after getting out of prison, and currently serves as San Francisco’s Deputy Director of Public Works. Durden finally expunged her convictions after learning about the Clean Slate program at an event where she was a speaker.
The best part of her new beginning, she said, is “that I can get on a plane and go to another country, and not get harassed with police about what I do, or pulled over, and just not being harassed about my past life. That’s the best part of my life.”
“I feel like a collar is released off of my neck for the rest of my life.”
Millions of tax dollars every year.
I loved the Clean Slate Article by Erin Sheridan…..It was so informative, we need this service and guide for anyone who might be needing a fresh start or past start or a current start to clean any past annoying records…
Restorative justice: proven to actually improvement to society, as opposed to the traditional “more fuel on the 🔥” approach of “more prisons/harsher punishments for shoplifters/criminalize poverty” approach that continues to fail.
Yet, the latter continues to be the norm and people wonder why nothing changes.
My understanding is that this program is only available for misdemeanors. Felony convictions are a lot harder to get rid of, although not impossible.
And of course if you on the sex offenders database, then that is a (very public) life sentence