Clinics assisted 26 Kane residents to file court papers for expungement, sealing record

ST. CHARLES TOWNSHIP – Fifty-one Kane County residents attended special clinics to see if they could get their criminal records expunged – that is, erased – and 26 cases filed to do that or be sealed, Kane County State’s Attorney Jamie Mosser said at Tuesday’s media briefing.

The three clinics that recently took place in Geneva, Elgin and Aurora were a joint project with Kane County Circuit Clerk Theresa Barriero, the Kane County law library, Kane County Bar Association and Prairie State Legal Services for the three clinics, Mosser said.

The law library and bar association arranged for private attorneys to volunteer to help county residents fill out paperwork, while Prairie State Legal Services did the presentation on how expungement and sealing works, she said.

“Now we have to wait the statutorily required 60-day time period to see if anyone is going to object,” Mosser said. “Those objections can come from the Illinois State Police. It could come from the police department that did the arrest, or it could come from my office.”

What is different about the responses to the recent clinics to sessions hosted in the past is that those did not result in people filing for an expungement or a sealing on the day of, Mosser said.

“We did this because we wanted to provide equal access to justice for everybody in our community,” Mosser said. “The process of expungement or sealing sounds like it would be a difficult thing to do. Even coming in and talking to an attorney may cost a person a couple of hundred dollars just to do so.”

But when volunteer attorneys can walk people through the process step by step and give them the forms to fill out, it becomes much easier, she said.

“This was very positive for our community in just seeing how many people signed up in advance, how many just showed up on the day of, that this is a very great need and is something that we’re going to continue do each and every year.”

The majority of the cases filed were drug possession, battery and domestic violence offenses, she said.

Domestic violence convictions cannot get dismissed, she said.

Some came from the county’s specialty courts – Drug, Veteran’s and Mental Health – upon successful completion and a time period of five years, they can have their cases expunged or sealed, Mosser said.

“It is something that Theresa (Barriero) and I – while walking during our campaigning together, just bouncing ideas off of each other – was an idea that we came up with together. And to see it actually come to fruition for both of us was just an amazing feeling,” Mosser said. “And we want to get out of our court rooms and our circuit clerk office and we want to be there for the people.”

In another initiative, Mosser said courtrooms 203, 209 and 211 will be dedicated to misdemeanor and felony DUI and domestic violence cases, possibly as of Dec. 1.

They will have four prosecuting attorneys in each, with two supervisors, dealing with Class 2 felonies down to Class A misdemeanors, she said.

This way, similar cases can be handled by the same prosecutors to have more efficiency and knowledge of those specialized types of cases, Mosser said.

“These are cases where we can really, truly make an impact on the defendants and the victims,” Mosser said.

“If you think about it, most of our felony cases for DUI and domestic violence are because of priors. For DUI cases, the person who is committing repeat offenses still has whatever addiction issues that they’re struggling with – and then they’re getting into a car – which is making them even more dangerous,” Mosser said. “If we can get to the roof of that addiction issue, then we are more likely to prevent somebody from continuing to commit these offenses and possibly even then crashing into somebody, which causes great bodily harm or death.”

As for domestic violence cases, Mosser said every single abuser who has come through the court system has grown up in a household that has seen abuse – and many victims they see also came from households with abuse.

“We can break this, but we have to do so in a proper way,” Mosser said. “And when you have misdemeanor cases and you treat them one way – in a specialized way – but you don’t do the same thing for the felony cases, we’re losing a lot of the chance to be the break in that cycle.”

The goal is to look at each person individually to find what treatment or intervention they need to stop the criminal behavior from happening, she said.

“And when you have prosecutors, judges and public defenders who are all trained in those speciality areas, you’re going to see that it’s a more collaborative approach to actually deal with an ongoing criminal problem,” Moser said.

When defendants are being charged for second offenses of the same crime, Mosser said it is time to see what is the root of the issue.

“Which means we are going to go towards more behavioral assessment, rather than just saying, ‘You’re accused of this crime, you must do this treatment,’” Mosser said. “The same goes for the DUI cases. In McHenry County right now, they have a very successful DUI specialty court for those felony offenders.”

While not available for cases where death or great bodily harm have occurred, but for the second or fourth charge, the motorist can get a team approach with treatment and other support to keep them from repeating the offense, Mosser said.

“We’ve created a criminal justice system that’s treated everybody the same,” Mosser said. “We in the 16th Judicial Circuit want to go to a system where we are assessing people and not just the crime that they’re charged with.”