MySanatonio

In five years, Melissa T. Benvegno of Allentown sees herself as a juvenile probation officer or even a federal border patrol agent.

Not long ago, those dreams would have been next to impossible for her, given two shoplifting convictions she had in her teens and 20s that would come up every time she applied for a job.

Now 35, Benvegno says she's a different person from the girl who grew up without stable parents and spent time in foster care as a result. She's gotten an associate degree in criminal justice and is working on her bachelor's, and says she's overcome her rough upbringing and believes she could help other youths do the same.

Last year, Gov. Tom Corbett granted Benvegno a rare pardon from her misdemeanor record, ending a more than three-year process that is, in effect, the only way for someone with even a minor brush with the law to have his or her past cleared in Pennsylvania.

"I started crying," Benvegno said, remembering the moment she got the notice. "Just like I'm about to do right now. To me, it's a feeling that you can put that behind you."

Benvegno is getting a second chance — unlike most people with criminal records in Pennsylvania, which makes it very difficult for someone to move on from a misdemeanor or felony conviction.

How hard is it? Absent a pardon, you must be 70 and arrest free for 10 years to have your record expunged. Or be dead. For at least three years.

That leaves action from the governor the only avenue for almost anyone who committed a crime when they were young, whether a bar fight, drug possession or a more serious offense like burglary.

Using the Right-to-Know Law, The Morning Call reviewed clemency applications that were decided by the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons for Lehigh, Northampton, Bucks, Schuylkill, Carbon and Monroe counties from June 2011 to October 2012.

The applications and meeting minutes showed 56 requests from the area were considered by the board. They overwhelmingly involved people with minor criminal histories that, many said, continued to haunt them years after they paid their debts to society, causing them embarrassment and difficulty advancing in their careers.

But most were unable to sell their hard-luck stories to the five-member board, which makes nonbinding recommendations to the governor, who decides on his own.

Nearly 60 percent were rejected by the Board of Pardons, including 28 — half — who were turned down without a hearing in which they could publicly plead their cases.

Of the 23 who won a pardon recommendation that was sent to the governor's desk, 11 were granted pardons by Corbett, one was rejected, and 11 others were still awaiting action.

The applicants spanned professions, ages and education levels, including:

—A Texas man attending law school, who feared he couldn't take the bar exam because of a 1998 conviction for the statutory sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl in Catasauqua when he was 19. (He was granted a pardon.)

—A 33-year-old Allentown man who admitted in 1999 to threatening another man with a shotgun in Wilson, but said he had since served in the Army, gotten married, had two children and enrolled in college. (He was granted a hearing, but the board denied recommending a pardon.)

—A 51-year-old Allen Township man with convictions for trespassing at a shuttered cement company in 1983 and the simple assault of his girlfriend in 2000. Raymond R. Brown said he wanted to find a better job, restore his voting rights and volunteer as a coach for his grandchildren. (He was denied without a hearing.)

In an interview, Brown said the experience was disheartening and left him feeling like he'll never live down his past.

"Years ago, you could apply for a job without them getting that information on you," Brown said. "Now with the computers, they know everything about you. What do you think people think when they see that? 'Well, that guy steals and goes around and assaults people.'"

Brown said he was wrong to do what he did, but that he's changed in the many years that have gone by. He compared the process to New Jersey, where he said he was able to get a 25-year-old felony conviction expunged merely by filling out paperwork and sending it back to his lawyer.

"I think to myself, 'They make me feel like a hardened criminal," he said of Pennsylvania's system. "I didn't do any time in jail for that stuff."

Not everyone has sympathy for a past offender like Brown.

Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli opposes relaxing the state's expungement law to make it easier for misdemeanors or felonies to be forgiven. He said the pardons board, by approaching cases individually, is able to separate the deserving applicants from those who aren't.

"The fact of the matter is that when you commit a crime there are consequences," said Morganelli, a Democrat. "And one of those is that you'll end up with a record that'll haunt you."

Even among prosecutors, however, there is disagreement.

"There's a place for an expansion of expungement in Pennsylvania," Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said. "There are people who slip through the cracks at the beginning or have so modified their lives that they're deserving of consideration."

Martin, a Republican, said first-offender programs like Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition help. Under the program, defendants avoid a criminal conviction upfront, provided they complete a period of probation and pay court costs and fines, allowing them to have their records expunged.

But Martin said not all defendants in minor cases end up on ARD, some because they handled their charges without a lawyer.

"I have a lot of empathy for the young person who was in college, then gets caught for a minor crime, and it comes time for them to get a teaching certificate, to apply for a job in law enforcement, or to become a nurse," Martin said.

In 2008, Pennsylvania did extend its expungement law to allow those convicted of summary offenses — for instance, disorderly conduct or public drunkenness — to petition the courts to have their records cleared after five years without an arrest. But efforts to go further have failed to advance in the Legislature.

Across the nation, 37 states and the District of Columbia allow expungements for at least some misdemeanor offenses, a review by The Morning Call found. Twenty-six states, including neighboring New Jersey, allow some felonies to be expunged.

9/11 spurs requests

Pardons board member Louise B. Williams said she would support making it easier for some minor charges to be cleared from records, saying young adults often don't comprehend the long-term consequences of what they're doing.

"They had no idea this was going to affect them later on in life," Williams said. "They graduate college and get a degree, and they say, 'Wow, I can't get a job in a bank or something.'"

Williams, a Lancaster city councilwoman, has served as the pardon board's victim representative since 1997. She noticed an increase in applications involving petty crimes after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which led many employers to institute background checks.

"Before 9/11, we didn't have as many of those kinds of cases," Williams said. "But now, it affects you if you're working in a school, many businesses. . Employers won't hire people who have a record."

In judging pardon requests, the board looks at the totality of each person's background, Williams said. She mulls whether the applicants have improved their lives over the years, whether they have held a steady job, and whether they have kept out of trouble, she said.

Once someone is granted a public hearing, Williams said she tries to evaluate the person's demeanor and forthrightness.

"Some people are evasive. Some people feel that they didn't do anything at all," Williams said.

In The Morning Call's sample, the most common charges were theft and other minor property crimes, which accounted for 19 cases. Drugs followed with seven cases, then simple assault with six. Felonies — aggravated assault and burglary — were also represented, with three cases each.

At least 60 percent of the applicants never saw the inside of a jail cell, receiving probation or fines only. The requests involved offenses that were, on average, committed 15 years ago. They typically took more than three years and two months to resolve.

There is a long line of applicants hoping to make their cases before Williams and her colleagues, who include Lt. Gov. Jim Cawley as chairman, the attorney general, a psychologist and a corrections expert.

Around 800 people are waiting to have their bids for clemency considered, said Tracy Forray, secretary to the Board of Pardons. She said some complain about how long it takes, but that no one gets to cut in line, with applications handled based on the day they were received.

"Every one has to be reviewed by staff, so it is itself a very time-consuming process," said Forray, who noted the board isn't full time, as the state Board of Probation and Parole is.

"They all have other jobs," Forray said.

A pardon application costs $8, plus another $25 in filing fees. Applicants must provide their state police rap sheet, a certified driving record, a passport photo, and copies of court documents. The requests spur an investigation by state probation and parole officials, or the state Corrections Department if the person is in prison.

From 2002 through 2011, the pardons board received nearly 600 requests annually, according to its statistics. On a typical year, 181 public hearings were held, and 136 people received pardons from the governor — less than one in four applicants.

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Efforts to change the law

State Sen. Tim Solobay was one of the forces behind the 2008 bill allowing expungements for summary offenses, which he said would help the pardons board address its backlog and focus on its most serious cases. In the legislative session that just ended, Solobay pushed for the law to be expanded.

Under his proposal, people with convictions for most third-degree misdemeanors would be able to ask a judge to clear their records after seven years without an arrest. People with most second-degree misdemeanors could petition for expungement after 10 years, provided their offenses were committed before they were 25.

Solobay, D-Washington, said he had lined up support in the Senate and House, but the bill stalled because of opposition from Corbett, a Republican who as a former attorney general served on the pardons board.

Chad Saylor, a spokesman for Lt. Gov. Cawley, said the state Department of Aging had concerns the bill would hinder the ability of long-term care facilities to screen potential employees.

Solobay plans to reintroduce the proposal next year to "get it rolling fast, and see if we can't make it happen," he said. "It's too important, I think, of a bill to not be done."

In the meantime, people will continue to turn to the clemency process.

Allentown defense attorney John Waldron has a client who recently applied for a pardon for a 1996 traffic offense in which she pleaded no contest to reckless endangerment. A nurse, she's a widow to cancer with two college-age children, he said.

The paperwork Waldron got back from the Board of Pardons warned it could take four years for her application to be resolved, he said.

"Four years?" he asked. "Is that crazy or what?"