Author Archives: Margaret Love

Margaret Love

Margaret Love is CCRC's Executive Director. A former U.S. Pardon Attorney, she represents applicants for executive clemency in her private practice in Washington, D.C.. She is lead co-author of Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction: Law, Policy, and Practice (4th ed. 2021), and served as an advisor to the ALI Model Penal Code: Sentencing.

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States “rethinking” collateral consequences? Vera Institute jumps the gun

The Vera Institute has published a new report that claims states are “rethinking” collateral consequences through enactment of laws intended to mitigate their impact.  The report (Relief in Sight? States Rethink the Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction, 2009-2014) includes an excellent introduction to the issues, helpfully categorizes different types of relief measures, and makes a number of useful recommendations for future reform.

However, the report seems unduly sanguine in suggesting that wholesale dismantling of the regime of collateral penalties is just around the corner, or that reforms of the past five years augur a sea change in public attitudes.  Of greater practical concern, the report has methodological shortcomings that limit its usefulness as a research and advocacy tool.

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Jerry Brown takes back a pardon . . . really?

Jerry Brown reportedly regretted one of his 105 Christmas Eve pardons, after learning from an LA Times article that the recipient had recently been disciplined by federal financial regulators.  He therefore announced that he was rescinding his grant, claiming that the pardon was not yet final because the Secretary of State had not signed the document evidencing it.

This is not the first time that a governor or president has had second thoughts about a pardon, but it is unusual for a chief executive to attempt to undo one that has been made public.  Governor Brown’s attempt to retract the pardon may or may not be effective, but it certainly reflects unfortunate disarray in the administration of the pardon power in California for which other deserving pardon candidates may end up paying.

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A pardon celebrates the life of a public defender

One of the 12 pardons granted by President Obama on December 17 went to Albert Stork of Delta, Colorado, long-time advocate for indigent criminal defendants on the rural Western Slope.  Al Stork pled guilty in 1987 to filing a false tax return, and served six months in federal prison. While his conviction came about in an unusual way, what makes Al’s case so special is what he did with his life afterwards.

Al Stork’s conviction arose out of his family circumstances. In the early 1980s, one of his two older brothers was an elected prosecutor in Colorado’s Sixteenth Judicial District; the other was a fugitive from Colorado authorities, having spent most of his life (as Al put it) “either in jail or on the lam.” Al himself, then in his early 20s, was leading what his defense lawyer described years later as “an unexceptional and unmotivated middle class life,” working construction and selling a little marijuana on the side.

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How risky is pardoning? Not as risky as committing uninformed journalism

An AP story about the perils of pardoning, picked up by newspapers and media outlets across the country, manages to convey three pieces of misinformation in its very first sentence.  Riffing off a recent high profile pardon application, it begins like this:  “Mark Wahlberg’s plea for a pardon has focused fresh attention on excusing criminal acts – something governors rarely do because it’s so politically risky.”

But pardons do not “excuse” crimes, they forgive them; governors have been pardoning more and more generously in recent years; and pardoning, like any other government program involving personal participation by a high profile elected official, is generally not risky if done in a responsible manner with good staff support and without apology.

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Guess who’s driving for Uber

The background checking policies of Uber and other ride-sharing companies like Lyft and Sidecar are again in the news, after an Uber driver with an extensive criminal record allegedly raped a female passenger in New Delhi.  Other horror stories of cab rides from hell with these popular “taxi aggregators” are surfacing.  The New York Times reports that background check requirements for taxi drivers vary widely by jurisdiction, but are “generally more rigorous” than the sketchy services used by Uber and its competitors, and “usually include searches of private databases like F.B.I. records.”  (Note to self:  Must inform the “paper of record” that the FBI records system is not a “private database.”)

Uber et al. have so far successfully resisted most legislative efforts to require them to perform particular kinds of background checks using particular kinds of background checkers, using the good offices of well-connected lobbyists to avoid this annoying speed bump on their road to a public offering.  But episodes like the New Delhi rape, and lawsuits for misleading consumers about the kinds of checks they do, may bring them around to a more responsible position. Read more

‘Tis the season for . . . . some presidential forgiveness

It’s that time of year again.  Odds are that sometime in the next two weeks President Obama will issue some pardons and commute some prison sentences.  I have never quite reconciled myself to the unfortunate and ahistorical  association of pardoning with the silly turkey ceremony (the Obama girls were right to roll their eyes) and Christmas gift-giving, the result of decades of presidential neglect and sometime Justice Department sabotage of the power.  But now that the season for forgiveness is upon us, I can’t wait to see what’s underneath the tree.

It was my fondest hope during the 2008 campaign that this president would want to revive the practice of pardoning, like Jerry Brown in California and Pat Quinn in Illinois, and restore a degree of regularity and accountability to the federal pardon process.  But so far President Obama has issued only 52 full pardons, making him the least generous full-term president in our Nation’s history.  And so far there is no indication that he intends to reinvigorate the federal pardon process, as Justice Anthony Kennedy urged in an iconic speech to the American Bar Association more than a decade ago, and as scholars and practitioners have regularly urged in less exalted settings ever since.  Nor has his Administration proposed any alternative procedure by which individuals with federal convictions can avoid or mitigate collateral consequences, like the set-aside authority in the Youth Corrections Act that was repealed in 1984.

But there is some reason for optimism even this late in the game.  President Obama’s evident willingness to use his constitutional power to reduce long drug sentences will hopefully have a spillover effect on the other half of the clemency caseload, the applications for full pardon from people who have long since served their sentences and gone on to live productive and law-abiding lives.  There are more than 800 applications for pardon pending in the Justice Department, many from people convicted decades ago whose lives of service have been exemplary.  They deserve something more than a gambler’s chance at forgiveness.

Collateral consequences and the curious case of Mark Wahlberg

Actor-producer Mark Wahlberg has filed an application for pardon with the Governor of Massachusetts, seeking forgiveness for a 25-year old assault conviction that occurred when he was 16 years old.   The “onetime ruffian from Dorchester”  bases his request for pardon on his rehabilitation and contributions to society since his conviction.  He also specifies his desire to avoid certain legal restrictions that he claims are impeding his business endeavors and civic activities.

By his own account, Mr. Wahlberg was a troubled teen who had a history of scrapes with the law by the time of the 1988 assault. He states in his pardon application that, if he
had not turned his life around with the help of “faith, hard work, and guidance from some incredible mentors,” he “would likely have ended up like so many of my childhood friends from Dorchester: dead or in prison for a prolonged period of time.”   He expresses remorse for his actions on the night of the assault, as well as “any lasting damage that I may have caused the victims.” He does not specify what that damage might have been, though news reports indicate that it was serious and possibly permanent.

As to his reasons for seeking a pardon, he claims that “my prior record can potentially be the basis to deny me a concessionaire’s license in California and elsewhere, “an important consideration given my personal involvement in various restaurant ventures,” presumably a reference to the fast-expanding chain of Wahlburgers.   He believes that, if pardoned, “I could not be denied a concessionaire’s license on the basis of my prior record,” which may or may not be the case.*

Wahlberg also proposes that a pardon would enable him to become “more active in law enfor
cement activities, including those that assist at-risk individuals.”  He states that only a full and unconditional pardon would, under California law, enable him to “obtain a position as a parole or probation officer.”  True enough, but an improbable ambition for an A-List movie star.  He disavows in his application any immediate interest in obtaining a firearms permit — leading this writer to wonder if one is required on location.

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“One Strike and You’re Out:” Center for American Progress reports on criminal records policy

CAPREPORTEarlier this week, the Center for American Progress published a new report on the effect of the proliferation of criminal records in a nation of mass incarceration and criminalization. The report (“One Strike and You’re Out: How We Can Eliminate Barriers to Economic Security and Mobility for People with Criminal Records”) explores the debilitating effect that a criminal record – including records for relatively minor offenses and for arrests that did not result in a conviction – can have on an individual’s access to housing, public assistance, education, family stability, and, in turn, their prospects for economic stability. The report’s authors are Rebecca Vallas of the Center for American Progress’s Poverty and Prosperity Program, and Sharon Dietrich of Community Legal Services of Philadelphia (and of our own CCRC Board).

The report makes the point that the proliferation of criminal records, and the ease with which they can be accessed, harms not only individuals but society as a whole. The collateral consequences of a criminal record result in employment losses of $65 billion a year in GDP according to one study cited. Another study estimates that the national poverty rate would have dropped by 20 percent between 1980 and 2004 if not for mass incarceration and the accompanying criminal record crisis. The report notes that the war on drugs and the “criminalization of poverty” has resulted in a disproportionately high incidence of justice system contact in communities of color. Criminal records are thus both a cause of poverty and a consequence of poverty.

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The “president’s idle executive power” and collateral consequences

In their Washington Post op ed on the President’s neglect of his pardon power posted earlier on this site, Rachel Barkow and Mark Osler are critical of the Justice Department’s us-department-of-justice-squarelogobureaucratic process for processing applications for executive clemency, which they argue takes a very long time and yields very little.  (The New York Times editorialized last year in a similar vein about how DOJ has effectively sidelined the president’s power as a tool for justice for more than 20 years.)  Barkow and Osler ask why Justice considered it necessary or wise to farm out the processing of thousands of petitions from federal prisoners to a private consortium called Clemency Project 2014, rather than reform the official process:  “such a short-term program does nothing to fix the problematic regular clemency process that will survive this administration unless action is taken.”

Barkow and Osler focus on sentence commutations, and not on the other common type of clemency grant: a full pardon, typically sought by those who have fully served their court-imposed sentences, to avoid or mitigate collateral consequences.  In addition to the thousands of prisoner petitions awaiting consideration by DOJ’s Pardon Attorney, there are now more than 800 petitions for full pardon pending in the Justice Department.  Most of these petitions were filed by individuals who completed their court-imposed sentences long ago but remain burdened by legal restrictions and social stigma.  A majority of the pending petitions were filed years ago and have long since been fully investigated.  What can be holding things up?

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Despite pardoning hundreds, out-going Illinois governor may leave significant clemency backlog

When disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was removed from office in 2009, he left behind more than the ugly controversy that would eventually lead to a 14-year federal prison sentence: he also left behind a 7-year backlog of over 2,500 clemency recommendations from the state’s Prisoner Review Board (“PRB”).   Blago’s successor Pat Quinn declared in April 2009 his intention of “erasing the shameful logjam of cases in a methodical matter and with all deliberate speed,” stating that “Justice delayed is justice denied.”  Since then, Governor Quinn has disposed of a total of 3,358 clemency petitions, granting more than a third of them.  Of the 1,239 persons pardoned, most have also had their records expunged.

However, despite his admirable efforts to restore regularity to Illinois pardoning, it appears that Quinn may leave his successor almost as large a backlog as he himself inherited.  This is because, during  his six years in office, the PRB has forwarded over 3,000 additional recommendations to the governor’s desk, most of which have not been decided.  Unless Quinn somehow finds a way to dispose of this still-large backlog of cases between now and January, Blagojevich’s irresponsible neglect of his pardoning responsibilities will have created a kink in the administration of the pardon power in Illinois that may not be worked out for years to come.

If long waits have become the new normal for pardon applicants in Illinois, those seeking relief from collateral consequences would do well to consider the alternatives available under state law.  For example, Illinois courts are authorized to grant Certificates of Relief from Disabilities, which avoid numerous licensing restrictions and shield employers from negligent hiring liability; and, Certificates of Good Conduct, which relieve mandatory bars to employment and other opportunities and certify the recipient’s rehabilitation.  Courts are also authorized to seal and expunge records in certain cases.

You can read about the latest round of Governor Quinn’s pardons in this Chicago Tribune article.  More information about relief and restoration of rights in Illinois can be found in the NACDL Restoration of Rights resource here.

UPDATE:  In his final days in office, Governor Quinn pardoned more than 300 people, and denied about 1000 petitions. He left about 2000 petitions for his successor to act on.  Let us hope he has a similarly progressive view of pardoning.

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