Retroactive first-offender sentencing could help some ex-cons clean the slate

On Sept. 24, a Cobb County judge wiped clean the record of a 40-year-old man who had long been haunted by felony drug charges he picked up when he was 19 years old.
?
? In July, Gov. Nathan Deal signed into law House Bill 310. The measure overhauled Georgia's probation system by creating a new state agency to oversee offenders, enacting transparency requirements for private probation companies, and relaxing some regulations for men and women on probation.
?
?The new law also allowed the Cobb man charged in 1994 to be resentenced under the First Offender Act, meaning his drug conviction gets dropped and his record gets sealed. The now-businessman was granted Georgia's first retroactive first offender resentencing for the charges because, as Cobb's District Attorney Vic Reynolds says, "he earned it."
?
? Robert Hyden, the attorney representing the man, says his client has paid his debt to society. The new law allows people bogged down by old charges, if they quality, to reenter the job market without a black spot on their records. The option is only available to people whose attorney did not make them aware of first-offender eligibility when their case was resolved.  
?
?“We always hear about recidivists," Hyden says. "We never hear about those who change their lives and make something positive... If a person is granted First Offender status… under state law, a job cannot use a prior charge against you."
?
???? Reynolds says Georgia lawyers could see a wave of interest in retroactive re-sentencing cases.
?
?But Georgia Justice Project Attorney Marissa Dodson says orders for retroactive re-sentencing need to first be cleared by the local district attorney.
?
? "That was a way to not open the floodgates to everyone who might have thought about getting first offender status," she says.
?
? People convicted of serious sexual charges or violent offenses who later earn first-offender status won't have their past offenses completely under wraps. Their records will still be available "for employment with children, elderly, and the mentally disabled," according to the Georgia Justice Project.
?
? Still, some offenders might not be awarded retroactive status at all.
?
? “In cases of more serious crimes, you won’t be eligible for first offender," Reynolds says. He says prior offenders are more likely to be retroactively granted first-offender status after they already served time and spent some time proving that they are not likely to commit another crime.
?
? Hyden says some attorneys don't offer first-offender status to all first-timers since it can be a gamble for people who are liable to tack on more arrests to their records.
?
? “There’s almost this understanding that if a judge grants you a first offender and you mess up, basically you’ve taken the opportunity the court has given you and squandered it," he says. In such a scenario, Reynolds says, judges tend to throw the book. Some repeat offenders will receive the maximum allowed sentence, says Dodson.
?
?Dodson says the new law also requires first-time defendants to be informed that they are eligible for first-offender status, "which means we won’t have to deal with this process of retroactivity in the future."