Santa Barbara College of Law is hosting the county’s first-ever Expunge-a-Thon

It wasn’t exactly the lions and lambs lying down, but for most of last Friday, about 50 usually controversial criminal justice specialists – private and public defenders, prosecutors and a few probation officers – worked together to overturn criminal convictions of 100 minor offenders.

It was the first time such a collaboration — held at the Santa Barbara College of Law — was held in Santa Barbara County, and organizer Joe Doherty expressed hope it would be the first of many.

For Doherty, the math is simple. Criminal convictions make it extremely difficult for those convicted to find housing or a job.

“When people are housed and employed, they are much less likely to commit crime and are much less likely to become victims of crime,” he said.

The joint cleanup effort, he said, is due to recent changes in state law aimed at reducing recidivism. Doherty found that of the 143 people whose records were expunged as a result of a similar event in San Luis Obispo County, only three re-offended in the last year and a half.

He said 458 petitions to expunge criminal convictions have been collected from just over 100 people in Santa Barbara County. Of these, he said, most fall into the unhoused category. He said the vast majority of the convictions heard Friday were for offenses, many of which were committed 20 years ago, and most of which involved drug trafficking. Some, he acknowledged, were lower-level crimes.

The defense attorneys sat in one room and went through the petitions first. They then referred them to probation officers and prosecutors for review. He estimated that about 70 percent were accepted and about 30 percent were rejected on public safety grounds. A judge has the final say in resolving such disputes.

The program is not open to anyone who is still on probation or has an unresolved criminal charge. And even if a person’s conviction is overturned, it will still be considered a criminal record in the event of a future prosecution, he added. And the law prohibiting people convicted of a felony from owning guns still applies, he said.

“We have an adversarial system,” he said. “Psychologically, it’s a powerful thing when people who are normally on opposite sides work together to give people a new life.”