Author: CCRC Staff

Editorial staff of the Collateral Consequences Resource Center

Scholarship round-up III

A number of new and interesting articles on collateral consequences have come to our attention since we published our first big scholarship round-up only weeks ago. We provide information, links, and abstracts on these pieces below. A more complete collection of scholarship on issues relating to collateral consequences can be found on our “Books & Articles” page. “Can We Forgive Those Who Batter? Proposing an End to the Collateral Consequences of Civil Domestic Violence Cases” Joann Sahl, University of Akron School of Law 100 Marquette Law Review 527 (2017) Each year courts issue more than 1 million civil domestic violence protection orders (CPOs). Although most of these orders will expire in one or two years, their impact often remains for much longer periods. The expired CPOs continue to carry stigma and significant prejudicial consequences for someone once labelled as a batterer. This Article explores how collateral consequences, generally recognized only in criminal cases, now afflict those involved in civil domestic violence cases. It examines the civil domestic violence process and discusses why the process and its resulting orders create collateral consequences. The Article also identifies those collateral consequences unique to CPO cases and reveals why these consequences continue to impact […]

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Montana just authorized expungement of adult convictions

For the first time in its history, Montana has enacted a law authorizing its courts to limit public access to adult conviction records. On April 13, Governor Steve Bullock signed into law House Bill 168, giving district courts the power to “expunge” the records of misdemeanor convictions after completion of sentence, effective October 1 of this year. This makes Montana the 30th state since 2012 to enact some form of record-closing law, or to expand an existing one. The possibility of full destruction of the record for all misdemeanor convictions makes Montana’s one of the more ambitious collateral consequences reform measures of the past several years.

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New York surprises with broad new sealing law

Late Sunday night, the New York Senate finally passed the beleaguered 2017-18 budget bill, which was signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo the following day. And while the passage of the bill was good news to New Yorkers eager to avoid a government shutdown, it should be even better news to a significant number of New Yorkers with criminal convictions. Tucked away inside the massive bill is an unheralded provision creating the state’s first general sealing authority for adult criminal convictions. Previously, record sealing was available only for non-conviction records and diversion and drug treatment dispositions. Now sealing will be available for misdemeanors and all but the most serious felony offenses. The new law, which takes effect in October, gives New York one of the most expansive record-closing authorities in the Nation, rivaling such traditional sealing centers as Massachusetts, Washington, and Minnesota.

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Second chance employment bill approved in West Virginia

High drama on the final day of the West Virginia legislative session produced a last minute compromise between House and Senate over SB76, the WV Second Chance for Employment Act.  If the governor signs the bill into law, individuals convicted of non-violent felonies will be able to return to court after 10 years to have their convictions reduced to misdemeanors. [NOTE: The bill was signed into law on April 25.] For several years the WV legislature has been considering how to improve employment opportunities for people with non-violent convictions, but the House and Senate had different ideas about how to do it.  The Senate approach would have expanded the state’s expungement law, which now applies only to youthful misdemeanors, while the House preferred reducing nonviolent felonies to misdemeanors.   As the seconds ticked toward midnight on April 8, the Senate agreed to accept the “forgiving” approach favored by the House, creating a new category of “reduced misdemeanor” that need not be reported on employment applications but will be reflected in background investigations.

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California set-aside enhances employment prospects

Second-chance mechanisms in California are working to increase the employment prospects and earning potential of Californians with criminal records according to a soon-to-be-published study by a team of researchers from U.C. Berkeley School of Law. The study, by Jeffrey Selbin, Justin McCrary & Joshua Epstein, tracked over an eleven-year period the employment status and annual income of 235 Californians who had their convictions set aside or their offense level reduced from felony to misdemeanor, with the aid of the East Bay Community Law Center’s (EBCLC) Clean Slate Clinic.  The study finds a modest increase in the employment rate of those in the sample (most were already employed, albeit in low-wage jobs). More significantly, however, after three years their average real earnings increased by roughly a third.

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