By Rose Mauro, CLA SoCal Staff Attorney for Expungements
We had been assisting Elizabeth (fictitious name) with records expungement for almost two years. Her petitions were originally denied (without prejudice) primarily because there were not enough supporting documents.
Elizabeth had a hard go of it in life, she struggled with substance abuse and had a record of misdemeanors and felonies. After losing her family and hitting bottom, she made a commitment to rehabilitation and finishing her education, both of which she successfully completed. She reunited with her parents and her children and knew that in order to continue to move forward she had to take care of her criminal record.
I, along with paralegal Victor Felix, worked diligently with Elizabeth to gather more than 20 letters and proof of job, school, and completion of rehabilitation. At the beginning of the case, she did not understand why all the documentation was necessary and was even upset about the process. However, upon urging by the team, she did eventually comply and gave us numerous documents that showed she had turned her life around.
Elizabeth’s paperwork was so enormous that Victor had to personally file them at the court and with the district attorney’s office. Her cases had several different paths to expungement. Typically, different judges hear the different types of cases. In this case we made sure one judge would hear everything to give Elizabeth the best shot at getting everything granted.
She was scheduled for a hearing in front of a judge known to be very strict and hard to impress. Elizabeth went to court pro per, and the judge commended her on how superb, organized, and thorough her paperwork was and granted her everything—all 12 criminal cases were expunged. He even waived all court fees, $1,800 in total. We were ecstatic when a happy Elizabeth shared her good news with us.
The expungement of her records has opened many new doors for Elizabeth, and she has come a long way in recovery and life. She was proud to share with us that she now works full-time at a big box store earning $30+ an hour, something that would have been impossible without a clean record.
