Columbus leaders unveil website to aid in sealing records of certain criminal convictions

Columbus city leaders formally announced the launch of a new online portal that will provide potentially hundreds of thousands of residents access to advice and help to get certain criminal convictions sealed.

The "Opportunity Port" website could help those residents in getting employment and housing opportunities that may have been unreachable because of their criminal histories.

Previous coverage: Columbus gets $500,000 to help residents seal criminal records

The platform is funded by a $500,000 grant from the Alliance for the American Dream, a competitive grant program founded by Schmidt Futures, that the Columbus City Council received in January. The original plan was to have the website up and running by this past summer, Council member Rob Dorans said previously.

The Opportunity Port website at www.opportunityport.org eliminates the need for an in-person meeting with an attorney prior to filing paperwork to have certain misdemeanor convictions sealed.

Those seeking to file an application to have a criminal record sealed can fill out an online survey that takes about five minutes. Following completion, the application will automatically be forwarded to a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society of Columbus, who will be able to help file an application for records to be sealed if the person is eligible.

The applications will still have to be reviewed by prosecutors and a judge for a final decision on whether they should be sealed.

Convictions for first- or second-degree felonies, sex offenses, operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol or drugs (OVI), crimes of violence and many crimes involving child victims are not eligible to be sealed under Ohio law.

Ohio's laws regarding the ability for records to be sealed also does not allow for traffic offenses to be sealed as they are not considered criminal convictions.

The law also allows for some charges that did not result in a conviction to be sealed.

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In January, Dorans said there were potentially hundreds of thousands of Franklin County residents that could benefit from the program.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Council member Shayla Favor said the barriers that a criminal conviction can bring are long-lasting, particularly when considering that nearly half of children nationwide have at least one parent with a criminal record.

"A criminal record should not be a life sentence to poverty, but the reality is any criminal record, no matter how old or how minor, can illicit a lifetime of consequences," she said.

One in three Franklin County adults have some sort of criminal record, Favor said, and those convictions can impede the ability to get affordable housing, jobs with livable wages or access to higher education opportunities.

Kyle Strickland, a senior legal analyst at the Kirwan Institute for the Study Of Race And Ethnicity at Ohio State University and member of the city's Civilian Review Board, said the complicated process of getting a record sealed still has barriers, but Opportunity Port is a step toward making the process more equitable.

"It is not our job to say if someone is deserving or not. They are residents of this community and a part of this community," Strickland said. "While there are certain policymakers that continue to stand in the way … we are having innovating leaders who are trying to cut through the red tape."

Ohio State University Moritz College of Law professor Doug Berman said if half of Franklin County's lawyers helped with one application to seal a criminal record each month, nearly 30,000 people would be helped within a year.

"Twenty-five percent of all jobs are out of reach legally, formally, for those with a criminal conviction," Berman said. "We're hurting community development in ways that go outside individual harms."

Franklin County Municipal Clerk of Courts Lori Marie Tyack said Tuesday there have been about 12,000 cases identified where a criminal or traffic charge has been dismissed, most of which are eligible for potentially being sealed.

"We know this tool will not fix everything … but it will do something," Dorans said.

bbruner@dispatch.com

@bethany_bruner

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus leaders unveil platform for sealing criminal convictions