Held to answer

After Winona Ryder was convicted of shoplifting, her career suffered a setback and Cher noted, “It’s such a drag that some crimes are cool and some crimes are uncool.”

Ben Price’s crime – distributing cocaine – could be cool or uncool depending on who’s judging him. Among some people a felony conviction calls for sympathy. In some job markets, the arts or the media for example, some crimes are bona fides conveying street cred.

But Mr. Price, to his credit, is embarrassed by the crime he committed 22 years ago. The Oregon man is now 44, the father of two, and he’s had no criminal convictions for the last half of his life.

As reported in The Oregonian, “Price wants to officially wipe the albatross from his record. He also wants the Oregon Legislature to free others like him of damning links to their pasts — ones that hinder their ability to get good jobs or housing — if they’ve remained crime-free for at least 20 years.”

House Bill 3376 easily past the state House 58-0 and now awaits work in the state Senate. If it becomes law, it would allow nonviolent Class B felons to clear their records after 20 years. Certain misdemeanors and Class C felonies can already be expunged after three years. Not surprisingly, some public defenders think the proposed change in the law should go even further to cleanse criminal records.

It’s peculiar that we’re living amid demands for more transparency in government and business, yet some of us want less transparency in criminal justice (unless it involves a citizen complaint against the police).

The problem with expunging crimes is that a conviction is not just an “albatross” for the convicted. It’s a fact. And there are already too many facts quashed in criminal proceedings.

Consider, for example, if someone pleads guilty to negligent driving. What was the real crime? Was the driver arguing with his passenger and not paying attention? Or was he actually driving drunk and agreed to plead to negligent driving? The real crime is dropped, as if it never happened.

These days many newspapers no longer run the daily fines and sentences from court dockets so “negligent drivers” don’t even have to worry about a tiny embarrassment in agate type. When I worked at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., the daily court records were popular with readers who could simply glance at the listings to see if they recognized any names. Occasionally, we would get a call from someone who didn’t want his or her name published, or wanted their name altered. Rarely was this wish granted.

Or consider what happens when cases actually go to trial. Anyone who has ever spent much time in criminal court knows that before a trial begins, the attorneys argue about what can and cannot be introduced as evidence, what facts and history can and cannot be revealed to the jury.

To lie on the witness stand is an act of perjury, but judges can and do allow criminal trials to be less than truthful, particularly to protect the accused. In my years of covering courts, I discovered that court files can be full of lies by omission, and it’s all perfectly legal.

Once a conviction is expunged, it’s gone as if it never happened. If the person who had his record wiped clean is later convicted of another crime, he would have no prior conviction to impact his sentence.

Apart from the legal loopholes, there is a more harmful and cumulative effect of expunging crimes deemed “nonviolent.” It contributes to the myth of nonviolence we have in this country, which trivializes the pain that property crimes can cause. A theft or burglary can be devastating to someone who is barely getting by, like the single mom I knew who lived in a Housing Authority apartment in San Bernardino. Her home had been burglarized four times, the thieves even stealing ground beef from her refrigerator. She couldn’t afford to move. She cowered at home and hoped her son didn’t turn mean from being helpless.

These stories and crimes are so commonplace they rarely merit publicity, let alone investigation or prosecution. They are written off by politicians and the media as “nonviolent.”

Mr. Price sounds like an honorable man. It also sounds like he’s had a successful life even with that felony conviction for distributing cocaine. No doubt if he caught someone selling drugs to his children, he wouldn’t shrug it off as a nonviolent crime.

His colleagues know of his prior conviction, and they know he’s not a drug dealer now. He is proof that being a convicted felon is not an excuse to wallow in self-pity. Other convicted felons could learn from his example, instead of expecting the courts to purge their records.

— Pamela Fitzsimmons