We are in for a treat at our fall Justice Conversation Sunday, October 15. For worship Jeanette Mott Oxford, a graduate of Eden Seminary, former legislator in the Missouri House of Representatives and current Public Policy & Advocacy Manager at Paraquad, will give the sermon. She is a passionate, well-informed and articulate advocate for poor Missourians.

The Justice Conversation on Clean Slate, moderated by Matthew Mahaffey, starts at 12:30 after a light lunch. From their professional and lived experience, our guests, Stacy Lannert and Shawntelle Fisher will explain and engage in conversation with us about how clean slate and expungement work and why they are so important to people with arrest and convictions on their record. 

From a professional lens, Stacey Lannert is District Defender with the Missouri State Public Defender's Parole Revocation Defense Team while Shawntelle Fisher founded SoulFisher Ministries, a nonprofit that educates children whose parents are, or have been, incarcerated. From the lens of lived experience, both have been incarcerated.

Today, some two million Missourians from all walks of life face barriers to jobs, education, housing and other basic necessities because they have an arrest or conviction on their record. If enacted, Clean Slate automatically will remove these records for nonviolent crimes for some people. Clean Slate would ease the burden of the current system by which only those who can afford court and legal fees have any hope of having their records expunged.