Category: Caselaw

Challenge to “Scarlet Letter” travel law moves forward

passportLast week a federal judge heard the first arguments in a lawsuit challenging certain provisions of the recently-enacted International Megan’s Law (IML),* including one mandating that the passport of any American required to register for a sex offense involving a minor be marked in “a conspicuous location” with a “unique identifier” of their sex offender status.  Other challenged provisions of the law authorize the Departments of Homeland Security and Justice to notify destination nations of forthcoming visits from those individuals. On Wednesday the court heard a motion for a preliminary injunction that would block enforcement of the challenged provisions of the law pending the suit’s final outcome. See Doe v. Kerry, Case 3:16-cv-00654 (N.D. Ca.).

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Gleeson Certificate enters “uncharted waters”

The New York Law Journal published an article over the weekend about the “novel relief” provided by the federal certificate of rehabilitation issued by former Judge John Gleeson on March 7, just days before he stepped down from the bench.  A reproduction of the certificate reveals its official appearance, complete with court seal and signatures of Judge Gleeson and the Chief U.S. Probation Officer.

certificate-of-rehabilitation

The government has until April 7 to appeal – the very day its appeal of Judge Gleeson’s expungement order in his first Jane Doe case will be argued in the Second Circuit.  The jurisdictional issues presented by the certificate order may be similar, if only because the certificate has some effect under state law.  See N.Y. Correct. Law §§ 703(7), 752, both cited in Judge Gleeson’s opinion.  It is likely that others similarly situated will apply for similar relief.

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Judge Gleeson issues a “federal certificate of rehabilitation”

In his final week on the bench, in an opinion that may in time prove among his most influential, U.S. District Judge John Gleeson issued a “certificate of rehabilitation” to a woman he had sentenced 13 years before.  See Jane Doe v. United States, No. 15-MC-1174 (E.D.N.Y., March 7, 2016) (Jane Doe II).  The opinion breaks new ground in holding that federal courts have authority to mitigate the adverse effects of a criminal record short of complete expungement.  Along the way, it confirms that a district court may use its inherent equitable powers to expunge convictions in “extreme circumstances,” an issue now on appeal to the Second Circuit in Judge Gleeson’s earlier expungement case.  (Jane Doe I has been calendared for argument on April 7.)  The opinion also finds a role for federal probation to play, including under New York State’s “robust” certificate system, which lifts mandatory state law bars to employment and other opportunities.  It does all of this in a manner that should make it hard for the government to appeal, since “this court-issued relief aligns with efforts the Justice Department, the President, and Congress are already undertaking to help people in Doe’s position shed the burden imposed by a record of conviction and move forward with their lives.”    

Joe Palazzolo at the Wall Street Journal blog noted that  

More than a dozen states and the District of Columbia issue certificates to certain ex-offenders who have shown their days of crime are behind them, usually by remaining offense-free for a long stretch. . . . . 

There is no equivalent federal certificate. So Judge Gleeson invented his own.

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Wisconsin court rules for non-citizen years after her plea

In an unusual case involving judicial failure to warn about the immigration consequences of a guilty plea, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has held that the likelihood of inadmissibility (as opposed to deportation) was sufficient to set aside three guilty pleas entered more than a decade before. State v. Valadez, 216 WI 4 (Jan. 28, 2016).  The decision suggests that it may be possible to challenge guilty pleas years after the fact, in any jurisdiction where a statute or court rule requires the court to warn about immigration consequences before accepting a guilty plea.

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Employment bars in long-term health care facilities declared unconstitutional

A few days ago we received the following communique from Sharon Dietrich of Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, announcing a major litigation victory that will be welcome news across the country.  On December 30 a unanimous 7-judge appeals court struck down the provisions of the Pennsylvania Older Americans Protective Services Act barring employment of people with criminal records in long-term health care facilities such as nursing homes and home health care agencies.  The provisions declared unconstitutional on due process grounds law include lifetime employment bans for offenses as minor as misdemeanor theft, which Sharon notes “prevented many Pennsylvanians with criminal records from working in that entire burgeoning field.”  The decision in Peake v. Commonwealth is here, and NPR’s report on the decision is here.

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Another federal expungement case from Brooklyn – is this the beginning of a trend?

On October 8, a former chief judge of the Eastern District of New York held that he was “constrained by controlling precedent” to deny the expungement petition of a woman who feared that her 23-year-old fraud conviction would prevent her from obtaining a nurse’s license.  See Stephenson v. United States, No. 10-MC-712.  Judge Raymond Dearie declined to find the “extreme circumstances” warranting expungement under Second Circuit precedent, noting that the petitioner before him was fully employed and that her aspiration to become a nurse was realistic, in light of the protection afforded her by New York’s nondiscrimination laws.  He proposed that his own willingness to certify her rehabilitation could help satisfy the “good moral character” standard for a nursing license. (Could this be the sort of “certificate of rehabilitation” contemplated by Judge John Gleeson in his second Jane Doe expungement case?  If so, it would seem to require no specific statutory authority for him to issue it to an individual he sentenced, no matter how long ago.)

Judge Dearie contrasted the case before him with the one in which Judge Gleeson ordered expungement in May, where the petitioner’s criminal record was having “a dramatic adverse impact on her ability to work,” citing Jane Doe I at *5.   The government has appealed Judge Gleeson’s expungement order.

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“Old Writ Could Give Ex-Offenders a New Start”

Joe Palazzolo has posted at the Wall Street Journal Blog an article describing an amicus brief filed yesterday in United States v. Jane Doe (Jane Doe II), one of two federal expungement cases before Judge John Gleeson that we’ve been following.  Argument in Jane Doe II is now scheduled for October 26.  (The government has appealed Judge Gleeson’s May 21 expungement order in Jane Doe I to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.)  The brief begins like this:

This Court invited the views of Amica on the Court’s authority to issue “a certificate of rehabilitation in lieu of expungement” and the appropriateness of issuing such a certificate in this case. While there is no federal statute that authorizes a court to issue relief styled as a “certificate of rehabilitation,” Amica wishes to bring to the Court’s attention two mechanisms, each perhaps underappreciated but with deep historical roots, by which the Court may recognize an individual’s rehabilitation and otherwise address issues such as those raised by petitioner’s case. The first is by exercising its statutory authority to issue a writ of audita querela, which is available in extraordinary circumstances under the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. §1651, to grant a measure of relief from the collateral consequences of conviction. The second is by recommending to the President that he grant clemency.

The blog post describing the brief is reprinted in full after the jump.

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While DOJ appeals his expungement order, Judge Gleeson’s other expungement case goes forward

The Justice Department has decided to pursue its appeal of Judge John Gleeson’s May 21 order expunging the conviction of a woman who could not keep a job because of her criminal record.  Its brief in U.S. v. Doe (Jane Doe I) can be accessed here.

Meanwhile, briefing is underway in Judge Gleeson’s second expungement case (Jane Doe II), in which he has also asked the parties and a “policy expert” to advise him on his authority to issue a “certificate of rehabilitation.”   Judge Gleeson commented to the New York Times on the general problem of collateral consequences:

“As a society we really need to have a serious conversation on this subject of people with convictions’ never being able to work again,” Judge Gleeson wrote in an email. “A strong argument can be made that the answer to this problem should be more systemic, through legislation, not on a case-by-case basis in individual judges’ courtrooms.”

Petitioner’s brief in Jane Doe II is due on October 5, the brief of the “policy expert” is due on October 8, and argument has been scheduled for October 15. The government’s brief is here, and briefs of petitioner and amicus will be posted here when filed.

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DOJ argues federal court has no power to expunge

What relief is available for people with a federal conviction who cannot find or keep a job? Part of the answer may soon be found in two cases from Brooklyn that raise the question whether a federal judge has the power to expunge a conviction whose validity is conceded. In the first case, U.S. v. Jane Doe (Jane Doe I), the Justice Department has appealed Judge John Gleeson’s May 21 expungement order to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In the second case, also styled U.S. v. Jane Doe (Jane Doe II), Judge Gleeson asked the Department to brief the issue of his authority to expunge.  He also asked the government to advise whether he has authority to “enter a certificate of rehabilitation in lieu of expungement.”  The government has now delivered its answer, and it is “No” to both questions.

The government’s brief is fairly predictable.  On the expungement issue, it argues that federal courts have no “ancillary jurisdiction” to expunge the record of a lawful conviction, relying on the Supreme Court decision in Kokkonen v. Guardian Life Ins. Co., 511 U.S. 375 (1994).  As to the court’s authority to issue a certificate of rehabilitation, the government appears to assume that Judge Gleeson was referring to one of the certificates provided for under New York law, and relies on cases holding that a federal court cannot grant relief under a state law.  One clue that this was not what Judge Gleeson had in mind might have been that neither of the New York certificates is called that (though they are considered evidence of rehabilitation), and that the only mention of a certificate of rehabilitation in federal law (Rule of Evidence 609(e)) is generic. Another clue is that no federal court that we know of has ever attempted to grant state relief to a federal offender (with the exception of a few assimilative crimes cases), indicating that the law on this issue is too clear to tempt even even the most creative jurist.

The petitioner’s brief is now due on October 5.  The expert’s brief is likely to be due a day or two afterwards. No date has yet been set for oral argument.

 

Amicus invited in federal expungement case

For those following developments in the federal expungement case currently pending before Judge John Gleeson in the Eastern District of New York, Jane Doe v. United States (Jane Doe II), the following order was entered by the court on August 6:

ORDER: Margaret Love, a nationally-recognized authority on collateral consequences and co-author of the treatise Collateral Consequences of a Criminal Conviction: Law, Policy and Practice (NACDL/West 2013), is respectfully invited to submit an amicus brief addressing the issues raised in my July 28, 2015 Order (i.e., the authority of the court to enter a certificate of rehabilitation and the appropriateness of doing so in this case) as well as any other matters that may be relevant to the adjudication of defendant’s motion.

The government’s brief is due on August 28, and petitioner’s brief is due September 11.  Argument is scheduled for September 18.  Meanwhile, no briefing schedule has yet been set in the appeal of Judge Gleeson’s May 21 expungement order in the first Jane Doe case.

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