South Texas Advocacy

In my last post, I mentioned Grant Dykeman, a second-year law student and chair of the Criminal Law Society at South Texas School of Law in Houston, Texas. 

The Criminal Law Society, on April 22, 2023, volunteered, in conjunction with the Harris County Court System, to give eligible individuals the opportunity to change their trajectory after experiences with the criminal justice system by sealing their low-level, non-violent misdemeanor criminal records and connecting them to vital support services at regular resource fairs.

Grant says, “because of the popularity of the program, it was limited to the first 30 individuals. The man who got ticket number 30 was a disabled man with a crutch who has been battling to get a Class B Misdemeanor expunged from his record for several years but lacked the resources. His name was also Grant. We shared a laugh, and he got a fresh start. Always feels good to give back.”

 It's accounts like this that give me hope that our Texas criminal justice system will in time become more of a force for restoration, reconciliation and healing than a system of punishment, which it now mostly is.