Restoration of Rights Project – Kentucky Profile

Guide to restoration of rights, pardon, sealing & expungement following a Kentucky criminal conviction

Collateral Consequences of Felony Convictions Established in the Kentucky Administrative Regulations

Sara M. Caudill and Ashley England-Huff, 35 N. Ky. L. Rev. 453 (2008)

Kentucky’s Statutory Collateral Consequences from Felony Convictions: A Practitioner’s Guide

Troy B. Daniels, Dawn L. Danley-Nichols, Kate R. Morgan and Bryce C. Roades, 35 N. Ky. L. Rev. 413 (2008)

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Momentum grows to restore voting rights to people with a felony (2/3/2021) - Our new report on 2020 legislative reforms shows continued progress in state efforts to expand voting rights for people with a felony conviction. Despite a courtroom setback at the Eleventh Circuit, where a federal appeals court ruled that Florida’s landmark 2018 felony re-enfranchisement initiative does not restore the vote to people who owe court debt, two additional states and D.C. took major actions to restore voting rights to people convicted of a felony. Already in 2021, an impressive 19 states are considering bills to ease or eliminate prohibitions on voting based on a past conviction. In 2020, California restored the...
New 2019 laws restore voting rights in 11 states (1/22/2020) - This is the first in a series of comments describing some of the 153 laws passed in 2019 restoring rights or delivering record relief in various ways. The full report on 2019 laws is available here. Restoration of Civil Rights Voting In 2019, eleven states took steps to restore the right to vote and to expand awareness of voting eligibility. Our experience is that many people convicted of a felony believe they are disqualified from voting when they are not: almost every state restores voting rights automatically to most convicted individuals at some point, if they are even disenfranchised to...
Bumper crop of new expungement laws expected in 2019 (4/9/2019) - Earlier this year we reported that, in 2018, legislatures enacted an unprecedented number of new laws aimed at restoring rights and opportunities for people with a criminal record. (Last year 32 states, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands enacted 61 new laws to facilitate reentry and reintegration.) The first quarter of 2019 has already produced a baker’s dozen of new restoration laws, some quite significant, indicating that this year is likely to be every bit as productive as last. The 13 new laws enhance access to record-clearing relief, occupational licensing and employment, and executive clemency. Also notable, if only for the sheer...
New research report: Four Years of Second Chance Reforms, 2013-2016 (2/8/2017) - Introduction Since 2013, almost every state has taken at least some steps to chip away at the negative effects of a criminal record on an individual’s ability to earn a living, access housing, education and public benefits, and otherwise fully participate in civil society. It has not been an easy task, in part because of the volume and complexity of state and federal laws imposing collateral consequences. To encourage employers and other decision-makers to give convicted individuals a fair chance, some states have enacted or modified judicial restoration mechanisms like expungement, sealing, and certificates of relief. Others have extended nondiscrimination...
Excessive filing fees frustrate new expungement schemes (6/3/2016) - How much is a clean slate worth? That’s the question many people with criminal records are asking in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Tennessee, where the cost of filing for expungement is (or will soon be) between $450 and $550. To put that into perspective: In Kentucky, the $500 fee required to expunge an eligible felony conviction under a new law that takes effect in July will equal nearly half of the monthly wages of a full-time worker earning the state’s $7.25 minimum wage. The relative cost will be even higher for the many people who have difficulty securing steady full-time employment because of their criminal...
Expungement expansion round-up (2016 edition) (5/23/2016) - More and more states are enacting new expungement and sealing laws, or expanding existing ones, some covering convictions for the first time. The first four months of 2016 alone saw courts given significant new authority to limit access to criminal records in four states, and bills have been introduced in several others that promise more new laws in months to come. In April, Kentucky authorized expungement of felonies for the first time, while New Jersey reduced waiting periods for some offenses and made expungement automatic for some others. Also in April, Maryland’s Governor Hogan signed that state’s Justice Reinvestment Act, permitting...
Kentucky expungement offers fresh start to thousands (4/15/2016) - On Wednesday Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin signed a bill giving state courts authority for the first time to expunge felony convictions. The new law, HB 40, allows people convicted of specified non-violent class D felonies who have been crime-free for 5 years to petition to have their conviction vacated, charges dismissed, and record expunged. Expunged records are deleted from official databases (including law enforcement), will not show up in background checks, and need not be acknowledged. The court and other agencies “shall reply to any inquiry that no record exists on the matter.” Democrats in the Kentucky House had worked...
Outgoing Kentucky governor issues order restoring voting rights (11/24/2015) - UPDATE: Governor Matt Bevin rescinded Governor Beshear’s order on December 22, 2015, saying: While I have been a vocal supporter of the restoration of rights, it is an issue that must be addressed through the legislature and by the will of the people. Governor Bevins went on to sign a major felony expungement bill in April of 2016 that gives many with felony convictions the chance to restore their voting rights. The outgoing Democratic governor of Kentucky has signed an executive order restoring the right to vote and hold public office to thousands of people convicted of non-violent felonies who...