{"id":1611,"date":"2019-12-02T20:01:35","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T20:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=1611"},"modified":"2023-03-27T15:51:06","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T15:51:06","slug":"a-year-of-jubilee-durham-drivers-are-getting-a-second-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2019\/12\/02\/a-year-of-jubilee-durham-drivers-are-getting-a-second-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"A ‘Year of Jubilee’: Durham drivers are getting a second chance"},"content":{"rendered":"
Ada<\/span>m Merritt caught a ride home from work a<\/span>nd pulled up to find his house full of cops. Someone had tried to break into the house and shot Merritt\u2019s roommate.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The police told Merritt that his roommate had just left in an ambulance. Merritt wanted to meet him at the hospital, but he couldn\u2019t. His ride already left and his license was suspended.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThey wouldn’t let me in my house, and I didn\u2019t have money for an Uber. I was just cold standing outside with nowhere to go,\u201d Merritt said.<\/span><\/p>\n Over a year later, his roommate has made a full recovery. But Merritt still looks back on how frustrating it was to be stuck in front of his house that day. \u201cThat was probably the peak point of how not having a license was just awful,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n Merritt\u2019s license was suspended because he never paid a speeding ticket from 2014. He was 19 years old at the time and he got two tickets in the span of a couple months. After going to court once, he thought he had resolved both charges. Three years later, he was pulled over for driving without a seatbelt and found out that he still had an outstanding charge.<\/span><\/p>\n According to the Department of Motor Vehicles, roug<\/span>hly one in five adults in Durham County had a suspended or revoked driver\u2019s license in 2018. Almost 80 percent were people of color.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Now Merritt is one of nearly 40,000 people eligible to get their licenses back. The Durham Expunction and Restoration Program was launched a year ago by the city\u2019s Innovation Team, which collaborates with academia, community organizations, and the private sector to research and address social issues in Durham. The \u201cR\u201d of DEAR \u2014 license restoration \u2014 began under former District Attorney Roger Echols and continued after Satana Deberry unseated him in the 2018 election.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Each charge or conviction revisited must be at least two years old and cannot include high-risk traffic charges, such as DWI or speeding in a school zone. The average case is more than 16 years old.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI feel like we owe Roger Echols a lot for initiating this, but DA Deberry has been an amazing champion,\u201d said Ryan Smith, project manager of the Durham Innovation Team. \u201cIf anything, DA Deberry has leaned more into it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Deberry explained that not having a license in a place like Durham is a big deal, especially because the city lacks a reliable public transportation system. \u201cIf you can\u2019t drive, you can\u2019t go to work, you can\u2019t take your kids to school,\u201d she said.<\/span><\/p>\n After a Durham driver gets a traffic ticket, they re<\/span>ceive a court date where they have the opportunity to dispute or ask to reduce their charge. But the fee for appearing in traffic court \u2014 not including the traffic fine itself \u2014 is up to $188.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat happens when poor people get tickets they cannot pay? You either don\u2019t show up because you can\u2019t afford it, or you show up and you get hit with the fines and fees and you don\u2019t pay it,\u201d Deberry said. Either option would result in a suspended license.<\/span><\/p>\n Since the program started last December, Deberry has been celebrating what she calls the \u201cYear of Jubilee,\u201d meaning a time of forgiveness. In a speech she gave at Duke Law School, she said that DEAR is the most successful initiative that she has ever been a part of.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With the help of a local nonprofit called Code the Dream, DEAR created a website to let people know whether they have benefitted from the mass relief program. Anyone can type in their name and birthday to see if their traffic charges have been dropped or their fines and fees have been forgiven.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n