Natashia Deon and Charles Hamilton of Redeemed.

Two former in-house counsel are building a nonprofit in Los Angeles to serve the community of ex-convicts yearning to clear certain offenses off their records in pursuit of a productive life. 

Natashia Deón, who had worked in the legal departments of Girl Scouts of the United States of America, insurance underwriter Deans & Homer, and construction firm Disabled Adaptations in London, has been practicing as a criminal defense lawyer for 10 years in Los Angeles, taking law firm referrals statewide. She's also an award-winning novelist with the 2016 historical fiction novel, “Grace,” described as an intergenerational saga during slavery in the 1840s. 

For the new nonprofit Redeemed which she founded and is CEO, Deón combined her lawyering and authoring skills to connect individuals with past convictions and creative writers. The purpose is to produce personal statements, which can be used in a petition for expungement by withdrawing guilty or no-contest pleas or guilty verdicts and entering not guilty pleas to dismiss those convictions. The individual will no longer be considered “convicted” of the offense as the record will show a dismissal. Redeemed will also aim to get qualified clients Certificates of Rehabilitation, which can lead to pardons by the governor.

Common offenses that can be dismissed include trespassing and vandalism, traffic infractions and cannabis possession. Though expungement requests have been on the rise since 2014 due to the state's voter-approved Proposition 47 reclassifying some non-serious and nonviolent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors, Deón said individuals who have served jail time don't often take advantage of clearing their records. They are usually traumatized from the experience, she said, meaning they want to avoid courtrooms or even dredging up the issue. 

Many of these convictions stem from a crime someone may have done as a youth, Deón said. Juvenile arrest rates in California have been on the decline in recent years thanks to millennials, according to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, but the Baby Boomers and Generation Xers are still dealing with the impact of their higher arrest rates.

“A woman did something in the 1990s. Now almost 40, she revisits the crime when applying for work, housing,” Deón said. “You keep confronting the issue from when you're 18. What I do is I stand for people, so I help them clear their records by expunging them. For me, it's restorative justice … A lot of people don't know it's an option and they don't want to go back to a place.”

Deón enlisted Charles Hamilton, who recently left his post as senior vice president of legal and business affairs at Warner Records in Los Angeles to be an entrepreneur, as the organization's vice president. They had met at one of her literary events for Dirty Laundry Lit, a nightly spoken-word series held throughout Los Angeles. Hamilton said they clicked and when asked to join Redeemed last year, he said he was drawn to the mission, even though he had zero criminal law experience.

“There's not a high level of awareness of the right to petition for expungement and rehabilitation certificates, and exercising that right requires extraordinary levels of motivation and resources,” Hamilton said, adding language barriers and other impediments discourage people from undergoing the process. “You have to gather statements of support, a bit like a college application process. I think that is amplified for someone who may have spent the last five years in jail.”

Full-service legal nonprofits and self-help clinics may have the expungement service, but the cost could range from $500 to $4,000, Deón said, with a court fee of around $150. She said Redeemed will completely focus on the process and lower the costs.

The nonprofit currently is looking to raise $30,000 in a Kickstarter campaign. With the first Redeemed event scheduled in August to connect the 25 petitioners to 25 professional writers, Hamilton said he will soon attend a hearing to see the affidavits in motion, but until then he uses his in-house skills to protect the organization and the people involved.

“What happens when we ask volunteers to submit a background check? What do we do for storage space for the records we're expunging? We have to do a lease agreement. That generalist aspect of what I used to do has come in handy,” he said. “I don't know every issue, but my in-house background teaches me how to spot organizational issues and resolve them. The things I have to look for, the risks I have to examine, like at Warner Brothers, is comparable here, though on much smaller issues.” He added he works on the liability, insurance, and anti-sexual harassment issues since Redeemed will provide trauma-informed training.

With the August start, Redeemed hopes to complete some expungements by the end of the year. After the mentorship with the writers, lawyers from Higbee & Associates will work with the petitioners to submit those affidavits to a judge for a hearing while Sidley Austin is managing information technology support. Deón said she plans to work on the personal statements while Higbee & Associates will make the decisions on which lawyers will represent the petitioners. 

“The most important thing is the community coming together for an individual. The lawyers, writers and artists community coming together; they don't have to be separate,” she said. “I've been doing these cases for years. I can do it alone, but if I do it alone, the lawyers wouldn't be in the courtroom with the person because they've been representing corporations throughout their career. The writers will connect with someone who's been traumatized and suffering and build their empathy, but they're actually changing their lives within three months.”

Working with clients who've experienced traumas while entangled in the legal system inspired Deón to hold Redeemed programming in artistic spaces like museums and libraries for clients and lawyers alike. 

“It was important for me as a lawyer because we're trauma-informed, so all our policies are geared toward realizing there's a trauma in the court system whether they were guilty or not,” she said. “Lawyers, for instance, have one of the highest rates of substance abuse, alcoholism; trauma is a big part. It was important for me to create spaces that were non-confrontational, nontraditional legal spaces they felt were comforting.”

In California, individuals who had been sentenced to state prison or placed under the authority of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation do not qualify for expungement.