People charged with crimes but who successfully completed probation, or who were never prosecuted or otherwise neither convicted nor acquitted will find it easier to expunge their records if a bill sent out of the Rules Committee Thursday is passed by the Senate.
Territorial Public Defender Harold Willocks argued before the committee for a stronger bill, one that would expunge convictions for minor, youthful convictions as well as the public records of arrests without convictions.
"The Virgin Islands is one of the few places that does not have one," he said. "For the rest of his life, his conviction is going to follow him,"
Without a law to strike some offenses from a person’s record, it’s difficult for youths who commit minor offenses such as vandalism or petty theft to put the situation behind them, because the record stays with them for the rest of their life, making it difficult to get any sort of good job, Willocks said.
"It’s easy to say crime is on the rise but why is that?" he said. "Is part of it because if someone commits a crime at 18 there is no hope for them?"
Willocks asked the senators to imagine being 17 and getting arrested for statutory rape, but due to a lack of evidence you are never prosecuted. For the rest of your life, anytime you apply for a decent job, your prospective employer will look at your record and see "arrested for rape."
"From age 21 until they die, whenever they apply for a job, their record says arrested for rape and any employer will say ‘Whoa, look at that.’ Even though you’ve never been convicted of anything, that’s it for you."
The original form of the bill would have allowed for criminal convictions to be expunged and possibly for all the records of the arrest and evidence to be destroyed. Charlotte Poole-Davis, deputy attorney general on St. Croix, read a statement from Attorney General Vincent Frazer, then testified herself against these aspects of the bill, arguing they would hinder police investigations by destroying past arrest evidence, tie the hands of judges when sentencing repeat offenders and potentially allow career criminals to wipe the slate clean. V.I. Superior Court Judge Darryl Donohue Sr. sent written testimony making the same points.
Under questioning by the senators, Poole-Davis and Willocks agreed records should not be destroyed, and Poole-Davis said having the bill only apply to those who were never convicted or who completed probation would satisfy most of her, Frazer and Donohue’s objections.
After a lunch recess, Sen. Usie Richards, who cosponsored the bill with Sen. Shawn-Michael Malone, offered amendments to the bill so it only applied to arrests, not convictions, and records would be preserved for the use of the courts and police, but expunged from the public record.
Voting yea to pass the bill on to the full Senate were Malone, Richards, Sens. Carlton "Ital" Dowe, Neville James, Sammuel Sanes and Patrick Sprauve. Sen. Celestino White voted nay.
