Forty-six year-old Yolancer Nixon got some disappointing news after she came early to a Lowndes County NAACP meeting in Columbus Thursday hoping to find assistance in removing a 1999 drug conviction from her criminal record.
After the Columbus resident was passed between a few people and city buildings, Nixon said she learned that because her conviction was for drug sales — she claims to have only been a user — there was no way no way for her to be granted an expungement.
“Now, I’m right back to where I started,” said Nixon, who said she’s been drug-free since leaving prison 10 years ago after serving five years of an originally 12-year-long sentence.
She was just one in a large crowd that packed the Columbus Municipal Complex auditorium for about three hours Thursday evening for “Promises Unmet,” a discussion hosted by the non-profit One Voice Mississippi, the Lowndes County NAACP, state Rep. Kabir Karriem (D-Columbus), the state House of Representatives and the Oktibbeha County NAACP chapter.
The topics spanned neighborhood crime, racial profiling, drug addiction, prison reform and pathways to criminal record expungement, among others.
About 50 individuals with convictions on their records brought copies of sentencing orders to work with a number of volunteer lawyers in filing for expungements — or the removal of the conviction from their record.
A panel discussion featured Karriem, newly elected District Attorney Scott Colom, Lowndes County District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks, former Lowndes County District 4 Supervisor Jim Terry and others, who took questions and shared personal stories of their histories involving the black population and the criminal justice system. The panel also featured a discussion led by Jackson-based lawyer Latrice Westbrooks on the expungement process, and other potential outlets of reducing the continuing impact of past criminal offenses.
Expungement
Westbrooks began the conversation by congratulating the room on the “bold step to make change” in electing Colom, who she said promises a better-held understanding of the issues of criminal justice facing the community. She contested the belief held by some that those with criminal convictions that have proved themselves worthy should not be able to complete their lives with a clean slate.
“There’s no such thing as a natural-born criminal,” Westbrooks said.
While there are certain crimes that are almost impossible to remove from one’s record, Westbrooks implored those with such histories to not give up — even applying for things like a gubernatorial or presidential pardon — if they have a compelling story to tell.
“All hope is not lost,” she said, adding that even with charges like sales of drugs, individuals are still able to register to vote — and warned that certain individuals might tell them, wrongly, they cannot — or try to discourage them. “No one convicted of (drug-related crimes) in the state of Mississippi is prohibited from voting.”
She further listed 21 crimes that will disenfranchise those with such convictions from voting, but said for some they may have the possibility of having their records expunged. While those with certain crimes like murder, manslaughter or carjacking are “out of luck,” she said every record is worth looking into.
Westbrooks, who said she had been a prosecutor for nearly two decades, shared her experiences witnessing the inequalities of the criminal justice system — including, when she first started and the Drug Enforcement Administration and its drug task forces looked to be “tough on those who pushed drugs.”
“But the people that suffered the most were the ones with those one-rock transactions (and not large scale operations),” she said, adding such people were convicted “to the fullest extent,” receiving 20- and 30-year sentences for selling crack cocaine and marijuana.
“The laws are still the same, but now (judges) know they can’t be as harsh,” Westbrooks said.
She advised those who know anyone going through the criminal justice system for the sale, distribution, manufacturing or transfer of drugs to discuss options with an attorney regarding getting their charges reduced.
Westbrooks — who spoke of Columbus as a place with a history of convicting people to the “fullest extent” — also said she’s witnessed, first hand, the difference in possibilities afforded to white criminals compared with blacks.
She said that when she was a young attorney a judge told a prosecutor to reduce a charge in order to not “mess up” the life of young white man, who had been charged with selling “a lot” of powdered cocaine — something she’d never seen him do with any person of color.
“In my world, you need the powder to make the crack,” Westbrooks said.
A new era
The rest of the discussion focused on the ways the criminal justice system and the black community have become intertwined.
“We live in a new era, the ‘New Jim Crow,'” Brooks said. “(It’s) not obvious now, now they kill us through the courts.”
Karriem shared statistics of the Mississippi prison population — 12,000 of the 18,000 in custody are black — 4,200 of them for non-violent crimes.
“For it to be so skewed, there is something wrong with that picture,” he said, calling on members of the black community to not turn the other way when someone close to them ends up with an arrest. He pointed out that he, too, could have been “another statistic.”
“If little Timmy, or Tina gets in trouble we can’t throw them to the wolves,” Karriem said.
He spoke of efforts of lawmakers this week in Jackson to expand expungement proceedings to more offenses. The bill failed to get out of committee, but Karriem said he will continue to fight the matter.
Brooks pointed out that with the U.S. having the largest prison population in the world — with Mississippi one of the top in the country, and Lowndes and Rankin counties some of the highest in the state — it doesn’t look good for the area.
“(That) means we are one of the worst in the world,” he said.
Colom spoke of his plan to incorporate a new way to approach non-violent crimes to reduce recidivism rates.
He mentioned “30 years of evidence” showing sending those with drug offenses to prison does not work, adding he plans to work to instead change behaviors and remove individuals from bad environments so they can get their “lives back on track.”
“The best plan is to rehabilitate outside of the system,” he said, suggesting he will work on placement of those with non-violent crimes in diversion programs. “I know (the prison system) does not rehabilitate people.”
Still, he promised not to back down on recent increases in shootings and violent crimes.
“I can’t tolerate it, because you can’t tolerate it,” he said.
An ‘unraveling thread’
While Nixon — who was one of about five individuals who shared their stories in front of the room — found she is currently unable to have her record expunged, she spoke of her thankfulness to the community, like Karriem whose family afforded her a job after she became overrun with probation fees and other debt following her prison leave. She said even with “two, three jobs” and after opening her own cosmetics business, she was unable to keep up with payments from her criminal past. She said she is happy to know she is still able to vote — and said she had, in terms of making up her mind on a candidate, only definitely decided against billionaire candidate Donald Trump.
“If he says all that about Hispanics and Latinos, what do you think he thinks about the rest of us?” she said.
She said she wants to see change in a “messed up” system, which she attributed as part of the reason for increased violence among the black community.
“They’re angry,” she said. “It’s just like an unraveling thread.”
’21 Crimes that disenfranchise’
■ The Mississippi Constitution lists 21 convictions that take away the right to vote: arson, armed robbery, bigamy, bribery, carjacking, embezzlement, extortion, felony bad check, felony shoplifting, forgery, larceny, murder, obtaining money or goods under false pretense, perjury, rape, receiving stolen property, robbery, statutory rape, theft, timber larceny, and unlawful taking of a motor vehicle.
NAACP Mississippi’s website states that the Mississippi Constitution of 1890 initially listed 10 crimes that would strip voting rights, but lawmakers added eleven new crimes in 2004. It also notes “while some of the listed crimes are crimes of passion, most of them are money-related, meaning poor people tend to commit them.”
For more information, visit: naacpms.org/jim-crow-still-disenfranchising-voters/
■ Misdemeanors and minor convictions are the main offenses available for expungement under Mississippi law.
For more information on expungement in Mississippi, visit: papillonfoundation.org/ criminal-record-resources/mississippi/adult-forms-conviction/
■ “Released by Grace,” a local support group for convicted felons and their loved ones — “transitioning convicted felons successfully from incarceration to society” — meets every third Thursday of the month from 6 to 7 p.m. at 516 Military Road in Columbus. For more information, call Quincy Brooks at 662.425.0560. The group is open to all individuals of the community.
Sam Luvisi is news editor and covers education for The Dispatch.
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