Announcing Clear Path Forward

Unfortunately for the Specialty Court graduate, their accomplishment is not valued by many employers. All they see is the word FELONY. Criminal histories can also create a barrier to obtaining housing. Many apartment complexes and housing providers do not want tenants with any kind of criminal history, even if it is a deferred adjudication. Felonies on your record can be the kiss of death. That is why the Texas Legislature created a way to conceal successfully completed deferred adjudications from potential employers and landlords. After a waiting period of five years, a petition for non-disclosure can be filed asking the court to conceal the prior case. There are three main qualifications: you can’t have any type of homicide or sex offense on your record, your case cannot involve family violence, and you cannot have an arrest of any kind during the waiting period.

For Drug Court and Veterans Court graduates, the news is even better—the Legislature has reduced the waiting period to two years. So if you finish your deferred adjudication successfully and stay out of trouble for two years, you can file a petition for nondisclosure. The problem is the cost. Qualified applicants would need to hire an attorney to prepare the petition, and there is a filing fee of about $300. Many of our graduates are unable to come up with that amount of money.

Our Board Chair, Deborah Keyser, is a STAR Drug Court defense attorney who has prepared many petitions for non-disclosure for clients pro bono—for free. Realizing that the cost was preventing a lot of clients from cleaning up their criminal histories, she came up with the idea for a new Justice Forward program, Clear Path Forward, that we pitched to the Texas Bar Foundation for funding. To our delight, they fully funded our request to start a one-year pilot program to assist 15 felony Specialty Court graduates in filing Petitions for Nondisclosure. This generous grant award allows us to pay the filing fees and recruit defense lawyers to represent the clients. 

Now we just need our supporters and the Specialty Court community to help us spread the word: Justice Forward is here and ready to help clients clean up their criminal histories! To apply for this assistance, go to our website and fill out the form in the Clear Path Forward section. Someone from Justice Forward will be in touch to connect you with a defense attorney who will file a petition on your behalf.