In the past year, California Governor Jerry Brown and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo made generous use of their power to pardon state crimes committed by noncitizens, reinvigorating a much-neglected means by which long-term residents may stave off conviction-based deportation. The personal stories of the individuals who benefited from the Brown and Cuomo pardons no doubt illustrate how individuals and families can be spared from unjustified hardship through the power to pardon. But were the governors justified in asserting a role for state interests in tempering federal immigration enforcement policies they evidently regarded as too harsh? In this post, I will briefly explain the legal and theoretical framework that supports a role for state pardons in the immigration context, and then argue for a more generous use of the pardon power in principled and transparent ways.
Author: CCRC Staff
Editorial staff of the Collateral Consequences Resource Center
CCRC’s top 10 posts and most popular tweets of 2018
Happy New Year! Thank you so much for spending time with us this year on our tools, news, and commentary. In 2018, visitors most frequently utilized the resources in our Restoration of Rights Project: a state-by-state and federal guide to pardons, sealing & expungement, loss & restoration of civil rights and firearms rights, and consideration of criminal records in employment and licensing. In addition, links to our top 10 posts and most popular tweets from 2018 are below.
We have several projects in store for 2019 to expand our work of promoting public discussion of collateral consequences and restoration of rights and status. To begin with, we will issue in January 2019 a report on the unprecedented number of new “fair chance” laws enacted in the past year: 29 states and the District of Columbia enacted more than 50 separate new laws, many addressing more than one type of restoration mechanism. 18 states expanded their laws authorizing sealing or expungement, Florida voters acted to restore the vote to more than 1.5 million individuals with felony convictions, and a bipartisan effort to reform how licensing agencies treat people with a criminal record bore fruit in a dozen states. In addition, in early 2019 we also expect to begin a major research project to determine which kinds of restoration laws are most effective in furthering reintegration.
More to come soon! Read more
Lawsuit challenges PA good-character requirement for cosmetologists
The Institute for Justice has filed a lawsuit on behalf of two women who were denied a license by the Pennsylvania Board of Cosmetology based on their criminal record, because they could not establish the necessary “good moral character.” The IJ lawsuit illustrates the continuing difficulties faced by people with a past conviction in the workplace even when they are qualified and fully rehabilitated. At the same time, in recent years Pennsylvania courts have not looked kindly on conviction-based employment bars, and last summer a board appointed by Governor Tom Wolf to review occupational licensing in the state issued a report critical of the good-character requirement in many licensing laws. So perhaps the tide is turning.
A piece in Forbes by IJ’s Andrew Wimer describes the case of Amanda Spillane, one of the two plaintiffs in the lawsuit: As a teenager, Amanda started using drugs to self-medicate for mental health issues. Eventually, she turned to burglary to support her habit. She was caught, convicted and spent two years in a state correctional facility. In prison, she overcame her addiction to drugs and found a new faith. After release, with help from family, she remained clean and worked a fast food job, before deciding to improve her prospects by taking a course to become an esthetician (a cosmetologist who focuses on the face), which required 300 hours of instruction and cost about $6,000. In applying for a license, Amanda did not expect her past to be an issue; she knew cosmetology was a skill taught to women in prison. But the Board of Cosmetology informed her that she lacked the requisite “good moral character” for licensure because of her criminal record. When she appealed, a board official “questioned whether her faith was real, demanded proof that Amanda gave regularly to charity, and asked why the people who had provided letters of recommendation had not traveled the two hours to the hearing to testify in person.” Her appeal was denied.
On December 12, 2018, IJ filed suit on behalf of Amanda and Courtney Haveman—another Pennsylvania woman similarly rejected for a license—challenging the Pennsylvania law that requires applicants for esthetician, nail technician, and natural-hair barber licenses to “be of good moral character.” Click here to read the complaint.
Comparison of collateral consequences in Europe and the U.S.
Alessandro Corda has a new article that compares the treatment of regulatory collateral consequences in the United States and in European legal systems. He argues that the primary difference is that in Europe proportionality is central to punishment schemes, and that sentencing courts must consider the impact of all combined sanctions on the defendant, including collateral consequences, in deciding whether a sentence is proportional to the crime. “Collateral restrictions in the United States, instead, are not taken into account in determining the overall proportionality of the sentence to the seriousness of the offense since they are not considered as punishment.” Criminal courts in the United States rarely consider collateral consequences in imposing a sentence, and for the most part have not regarded them as any of their business.
Corda points out that “Europe never moved completely away from a rehabilitative model of punishment,” and that “the ultimate goal of European penal systems widely remains the reintegration of ex-offenders.” In contrast, “the approach toward collateral restrictions in the United States tends to mirror prevailing criminal justice attitudes oriented primarily toward harsh and prolonged measures of penal control.” Even during a period of “penal climate-change,” when sentencing and corrections policies are being rethought in this country, collateral consequences have been largely left out of the reform picture. He argues that “no reform aimed at moving away from mass incarceration and overreliance on penal control can ultimately succeed if indirect ramifications of ‘being a criminal’ are ignored.”
California enacts modest occupational licensing reform
On September 30, 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law AB 2138, making California the twelfth state this year to enact occupational licensing reform. This flurry of legislation will make it easier for people with a criminal record to obtain occupational and professional licenses. (As discussed in recent posts, the Institute for Justice’s model occupational licensing act and the National Employment Law Project’s model state law have influenced this legislative trend.) However, California’s take on licensing reform is relatively tepid compared to more extensive reforms in states like Indiana, Kansas, New Hampshire, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.
In California, nearly 30 percent of jobs require licensure, certification, or clearance. When AB 2138 takes effect in 2020, it will prohibit licensing boards from denying a license based on certain acts not resulting in conviction, or certain less serious convictions after seven years. The law will require boards to consider rehabilitation evidence for any conviction (not just misdemeanors, as under existing law), to establish more detailed criteria for evaluating convictions, and to issue annual reports.
While a more robust version of the bill first passed the California Assembly, it was weakened in the California State Senate, and ultimately, the Senate’s version prevailed. The legislative process and bill’s provisions are discussed in more detail below.
Restoration of Firearm Rights After Conviction: A National Survey and Recommendations for Reform (Dec. 2025)
Positive Credentials That Limit Risk: A Report on Certificates of Relief (June 2024)
Advancing Second Chances: Clean Slate and Other Record Reforms in 2023 (Jan. 2024)
Accessing SNAP and TANF Benefits after a Drug Conviction: A Survey of State Laws (Dec. 2023)
The Many Roads from Reentry to Reintegration (March 2022)
