Opportunity awaits for thousands of Bay Area residents with low-level felony convictions

OAKLAND — Jill Jenkins knows firsthand the opportunities that await thousands of Bay Area residents eligible to get their felony convictions reduced under Proposition 47.

An ex-offender turned paralegal at the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office, Jenkins is part of the massive effort by Bay Area public defenders to reach out to people whom the new law has given three years to get their low-level drug possession and theft convictions reduced to misdemeanors.

“I crusaded for the Prop. 47 campaign and voted for it, and now I’m a recipient of it and working to advocate for it for others,” Jenkins, 48, said one recent afternoon after an Oakland judge reduced her commercial burglary conviction to a misdemeanor, took her off felony probation and wiped her criminal record clean.

Voted into law in November, Proposition 47 reclassified simple drug possession and theft with a value under $950 from felonies to misdemeanors. Three months later, it is transforming lives and the criminal justice system.

East Bay county jails reported an immediate 10 percent drop in the number of inmates, and in San Mateo County it was as high as 33 percent.

The difficulties that people with felony convictions face are profound, said Lenore Anderson, executive director of Californians for Safety and Justice and co-author of Proposition 47. They have a difficult time getting jobs, promotions, federal student loans, certain housing and public assistance, teaching credentials, and more.

Because the maximum punishments for misdemeanors are much lower than for felonies, many offenders were released from jail or prison once their offenses were reclassified under the new law.

Counties like Los Angeles and Orange still have a long way to go to reduce convictions for all of their Proposition 47-eligible offenders who are currently incarcerated, Anderson said. But defense attorneys in the Bay Area hit the ground running the week it became law and are largely done addressing that population.

Not everyone is pleased with the progress. San Mateo County DA Steve Wagstaffe, who opposed Proposition 47, said he’s seeing three-strikers and other serious offenders who should be locked up freed.

“We’re finding that about one-third of the cases that were appropriate at the felony level are now misdemeanors. That means that offenders are serving little or no time and that means they are out in our community,” Wagstaffe said. “For most of them, that’s fine, but there are a portion of them who are serious offenders with long prior records.”

In an Oakland courtroom last fall, inmates were doing arm pumps and flashing big smiles at the news that they were being released. Social workers rushed to their side to hand out referrals for community-based organizations offering emergency shelter, mental health services, rehab programs and job training to help with the transition.

“They were thrilled because a lot of people didn’t even know why they were coming in to court,” said Sascha Atkins-Loria, one of a team of social workers deployed by Alameda County public defender Brendon Woods to help Proposition 47 clients.

“Eighty percent seemed overjoyed because they didn’t know they were getting out,” Atkins-Loria said. “Another 20 percent seemed like they didn’t know where they were going to stay tonight.”

In Contra Costa County, public defender Robin Lipetzky said she’s asking the Board of Supervisors for more staff to help with the Proposition 47 fallout.

“We desperately need attorney positions and legal assistance positions to file the petitions for the hundreds of people on probation and the tens of thousands of people who can get their convictions reduced,” Lipetzky said. “We have a constitutional duty to these clients to get these petitions filed, and there’s only a three-year window to get it done.”

In Alameda County, the effort is being assisted by Jenkins, who admits her troubled past, vibrant present and bright future makes her something of a Proposition 47 poster child.

“I think it’s remarkable to have someone with that perspective, who’s been out there, who’s suffered a conviction and now turned her life around and wants to help others turn their lives around also,” said senior assistant public defender Jody Nunez, the Alameda County Proposition 47 coordinator currently tackling more than 5,000 eligible probation cases. “She’s the reason I became a public defender.”

Jenkins was a crack addict roaming the streets and shoplifting for a thrill in 2012 when she got caught stealing a prepackaged turkey sandwich from an Oakland CVS store and was charged with a felony due to similar petty thefts in the past.

Looking back, Jenkins deems the arrest her reprieve from “living foul.” After successfully completing a yearlong rehab program, Jenkins picked up where she left off at Cal State East Bay in the ’90s and got her paralegal certificate at Merritt College. Now she’s getting ready to graduate with a B.A. in sociology, applying for a master’s program, and dividing her days among her classes and paralegal internships with the public defender’s office and John Burris’ law firm. Long-term, she and her partner, who is also in recovery and working toward a degree, want to run a program providing rehab, housing and job training for people making the transition out of incarceration.

Jenkins said she feels like she has accomplished a lot.

“It’s very freeing and I’m proud of myself. … Maybe three years ago, I would have never imagined being in this position at all.”

Contact Malaika Fraley at 925-234-1684. Follow her at Twitter.com/malaikafraley.