Author: CCRC Staff

Editorial staff of the Collateral Consequences Resource Center

Life sentence is “slow death penalty”

The Guardian has published a detailed account of a case in the queue awaiting consideration by the President for commutation of sentence.  Ray Bennett was convicted in 1991 of acting as a courier for a crack cocaine distributor, and sentenced to life in prison based on two prior state misdemeanors.  “The judge who sentenced Bennett did his duty reluctantly, saying the drug runners were ‘just country folks’ and not the major traffickers that Congress likely had in mind.”

Bennett has now served more than 24 years in prison, has an exemplary record of conduct while incarcerated, and has long since conquered the addiction to drugs that led to his conviction.  His clemency application was filed with the Pardon Attorney through Clemency Project 2014 in early April.  We reprint substantial portions of the Guardian article to show the kinds of cases that may be acted on by the President in coming months.

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“Poised to commute dozens of sentences, Obama remains the ‘Scrooge’ of pardons”

SalaYahoo News has published a piece by its chief investigative reporter Michael Isikoff commenting on how few pardons President Obama has granted, and how backed up the Justice Department’s pardon office seems to be.  He illustrates the problem of presidential inaction with the case of Sala Udin, a Pittsburgh community activist and former City Council member, whose application for pardon of a 1970 firearms conviction has been awaiting decision for several years. Isikoff reports that while the President is likely to issue a number of sentence commutations this week, no pardons will be forthcoming. This leaves the 800 people whose pardon applications are pending in the Justice Department wondering whether there is hope for forgiveness during this president’s term.

What does it take to get a pardon from President Obama?

It’s a question Sala Udin, a former Pittsburgh City Council member and onetime civil rights Freedom Rider, is asking a lot this summer, more than three years after he first asked a president he deeply admires to grant him a pardon for a 44-year-old federal firearms conviction.

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Insurance companies undermine fair hiring efforts

An investigation by the Wall Street Journal reveals the little-known role that insurance companies play in shaping employer policies on hiring people with a criminal record.  Joe Palazzolo reports in “Criminal Records Haunt Hiring Initiative” that the “unseen hand of commercial insurers” frustrates efforts by some employers to implement fair hiring policies, and gives others an excuse for maintaining broad prohibitions on hiring convicted individuals.  “An employee is typically excluded from standard insurance policy against fraud, theft, embezzlement and other crimes—known as a fidelity bond—as soon as the employer discovers that he or she has committed a dishonest act, whether recently or in the past.”

The extent of the problem is illustrated by the story of Louis Henry, an Alabama man who lost a sales-management position at a medical-technology company after one day on the job, when a background check revealed a dated conviction for misreporting the status of a loan on the books of a bank where he worked.   “A May 1 letter from the employer, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, said Mr. Henry’s record placed the company in violation of its insurance policies.”

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Wisconsin considering redacting youthful dismissed charges

As part of budget deliberations, the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Commitment approved a provision that would allow courts to remove records of certain dismissed charges from the computerized statewide records system.

Under current law, although certain conviction records of youthful defendants may be expunged, anomalously dismissed charges remain accessible.  The new provision would allow a judge to order removal of a record from the internet site if all charges have been dismissed; all charges carried a maximum penalty not exceeding six years of imprisonment; none of the charges were classified as violent crimes; and the charges were filed before the defendant attained age 25.  These are the same criteria that apply to expungement of youthful convictions. 

People who would benefit from the change include people whose only contact with the criminal justice system was a case that was ultimately dismissed after they went through deferred prosecution or a first offenders program.
The new law would apply retroactively, thus allowing individuals to apply for removal from the website of charges dismissed before the effective date of the provision.  The redaction of records would apparently apply only to records accessible on the website, not to court records accessible through the local clerk of court, nor to arrest records accessible through law enforcement agencies.

The state budget still awaits approval by both houses of the Legislature and by the Governor, who has broad authority for line-item vetoes.

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Glenn Martin’s “prison-like” White House experience

The Crime Report published this report about Glenn Martin’s recent experience as an invited guest at the White House, described in Glenn’s open letter to the President, giving further details of the treatment he received and describing the Administration’s response.

Glenn Martin’s “prison-like” White House experience

July 2, 2015 09:01:56 am

By Graham Kates

Two weeks after criminal justice advocate Glenn Martin was nearly denied access to a White House event he was invited to, he’s still waiting for an explanation.

In a widely distributed “open letter” to President Barack Obama last week, Martin revealed that he was required to have a special escort in order to enter the White House complex for a discussion with senior officials on breaking down barriers facing ex-prisoners.

Martin, who is one of the country’s leading advocates for ending those barriers, is an ex-inmate himself. Now head of JustLeadershipUSA, he served time for a robbery conviction 20 years ago—and has since achieved national prominence for his work with former prisoners.

Although he was invited to the meeting, along with a select group of advocates, scholars, elected officials and law enforcement authorities, he was treated as a security risk.

“The staggering symbolism of the ordeal was not lost on me, Mr. President,” Martin wrote in the June 25 letter to Obama and Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy.

“In a country where 65 million people have a criminal record on file, being selectively barred from entering the White House for a discussion about those very same people was as insulting as it was indicative of the broader problem.”

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