A central Kentucky attorney has developed a web application to streamline the process for some class D felons to expunge their records. Brad Clark says he built unconvicted.com to create, what he hails as, a low-cost and convenient service.
The site provides a free evaluation to determine within 3 days if a person is eligible to have their criminal record cleared.
Clark previously served as a public defender and a capital defender for death penalty cases in eastern Kentucky. He says he began developing his project when Governor Matt Bevin declared his support for expungementof certain class D felonies.
“I saw just what a felony conviction can do to a young person,” said Clark. “What it can do to their prospects to succeed, to go on to go to school, hold a good job, get the kind of housing in a good neighborhood so people can get away from the lifestyle they’ve been living, that we want them to avoid if we want to drive down recidivism.”
Currently, Clark said, there are “a lot of hoops to jump through” for those who want to expunge their records.
“I want to make it as close to automatic as possible because people shouldn’t be denied this right, this relief from judgment, on the basis that they somehow procedurally defaulted or they didn’t have the time to get away from their job to go see an attorney or those kinds of things,” Clark said.
Clark says 500 people have used the web application as of Tuesday. The site is only free to determine eligibility, other services would incur fees.
The expungement bill goes into effect July 15.
Clark says he is looking for attorneys across the state to which he can refer people for more local service.”
