The new Durham Expunction and Restoration program has already dismissed more than 70,000 traffic and criminal cases, but expanding it will require resourcesâand political will.
Linwood Thornton had just accepted that heâd never drive legally again.
His license had been suspended since June 2, 1989. A relative used his identity and got a speeding ticket that January, he says, and he didnât know about it until he was pulled over that September, after spending three months in prison. Only then did he learn his license had been suspended for missing the court date, which he thinks occurred while he was locked up. (Court and jail records donât go back far enough to confirm all of his story.)
Thornton went on with his life. He and his wife had five kids, and he started a home improvement business. But the suspension loomed over him. It limited what jobs he could take and what vehicles he could add to his business. It cost him time spent waiting for rides. And when he had no choice but to drive, he got new tickets for driving with a revoked license, which he couldnât afford to pay â and three more license suspensions, a cycle that seemed insurmountable.
Eventually, he gave up.
So when he and his wife, Rosa Ann â whose license is also suspended â first heard from his brotherâs girlfriend about something called the Durham Expunction and Restoration program, an initiative that began in December to connect people to free legal help with license restoration, he thought it was too good to be true.
âI just thought someone was jiving. I didnât think it was real,â says Thornton, a tall man with an affable twang. âMe and my baby jumped up and boogied to the courthouse.â Â
On January 23, they arrived on the sixth floor of the Durham County courthouse, where DEAR shares a space with the county drug court. Five other people were in the waiting room talking about all theyâd lost because they couldnât legally drive.
âAll our stories are the same,â Thornton said.
One woman said she spent nearly $100 a week on ride-sharing services to get to work at Durham Public Schools. If she had to drive â when she didnât have the money or couldnât get a ride â she was too anxious to turn the radio on.
âIf you donât have a license, you donât really have nothing,â a man added, eliciting knowing nods. âIf you donât have a license, itâs like you donât exist.â
While other counties provide assistance for those with license suspensions, Durhamâs model â a collaboration between the city of Durham, the courts, the NC Justice Center, Legal Aid, the NC Equal Access to Justice Commission, the NC Pro Bono Resource Center, local law schools, and Code for Durham â offers relief on an unprecedented scale, and not just for traffic issues, but for lingering criminal charges as well.
By early March, DEAR had had dismissed more than 70,000 cases (most for traffic charges tied to license suspensions), waived more than $200,000 in unpaid traffic fines and court fees (on average thirteen years old) for more than 1,200 people, and helped more than 120 others start the process of getting their criminal records expunged.
The program isnât doing anything not already allowed under state law. Instead, its attorneys and partners are using data and court records to maximize access to existing methods of assistance, under the belief that a justice system that disproportionately targets low-income people and communities of color should bear responsibility for correcting those disparities.
Other counties are watching to see how Durhamâs experiment with mass relief works out. The programâs advocates think it could be a model thatâs eventually rolled out across the state. If thereâs enough political will â and enough resources â they say, hundreds of thousands of residents could be given second chances.
âIt is a second chance, but the law gives this second chance to everyone, so everyone should have the opportunity to get it,â says District Court Judge Amanda Maris. âIf you want to take it deeper, you have to ask the question â for some, were you given a first chance?â
More at main article.
