[showhide type=”links” more_text=”Restoration of Rights Project: Federal Profile” less_text=”Restoration of Rights Project: Federal Profile”]
This document is available for download at this link.
[pdf]https://www.nacdl.org/uploadedFiles/files/resource_center/2012_restoration_project/state_narr_us.pdf[/pdf]
[/showhide]
>> Select another jurisdiction <<
Related blog posts:
- Federal Certificate Offers New Hope for Americans in ‘Internal Exile’ (10/28/2020) - The title of this post is the title of our op-ed in The Crime Report in support of a bipartisan Senate bill that would authorize judges to issue a “Certificate of Rehabilitation” to qualified individuals with federal convictions. The bill in question was included in the Business Roundtable’s “Second Chance Agenda,” which was the subject of a post here two weeks ago. The op ed is reprinted below: Federal Certificate Offers New Hope for Americans in ‘Internal Exile’ The collateral consequences of a federal conviction have thrust many Americans into what some have termed an “internal exile.” Barriers that prevent full reintegration into society are liberally distributed in federal and state laws and regulations. Congress is now weighing a new form of relief—a Certificate of Rehabilitation—intended to address the absence of any general federal restoration of rights regime, leaving aside the once-robust, now rare and erratic presidential pardon power. Under the proposed RE-ENTER Act of 2019 (S. 2931), the certificates would be issued by a judge to alleviate the burdens of a criminal record. The concept was pioneered by New York more than half a century ago, and is currently authorized in 12 states. It has been recommended by the [...]
- HHS finalizes rules on child care worker screening (9/28/2016) - In February we posted about regulations proposed by the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement criminal history screening requirements for child care workers under recent changes to the Child Care and Development Block Grant Act of 2014. The CCRC joined a coalition of organizations led by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) in calling upon HHS to reconsider the proposed regulations. In a formal comment submitted to HHS, the coalition argued that the regulations contained screening standards that were more exclusionary than the Act requires, and that they would have a disparate impact on women, African Americans, and Latinos. HHS has now issued the final version of those regulations. Although the final rules are far from perfect, they do address a number of the concerns raised by the coalition. For example, they omit language that encouraged states to require self-disclosure of criminal history, provide greater protection from inaccurate criminal record reporting, and urge states adhere to the standards laid out in the EEOC guidance by providing individualized assessments for disqualifying offenses that are added by the states but not required by the federal law. Unfortunately, HHS chose not to back down on one of the most troubling provisions of the proposed regulations: criminal history screening [...]
- Can the pardon power be revived through procedural reforms? (9/12/2016) - Mark Osler has posted a new piece arguing for an overhaul of the federal pardon process so that it more closely resembles efficient and productive state clemency systems. He argues that flaws in the process for administering the power, rather than a failure of executive will, have prevented President Obama from carrying out his ambitious clemency agenda directed atlong-sentenced drug offenders. Streamlining the process will enable presidents to use the power more generously and effectively. This seems to us to an oversimplified solution to the theoretical and practical problems with what President Obama has been trying to do. Moreover, at least in the absence of constitutional amendment, any structural changes in the federal pardon process would have to be reaffirmed by each new president, and would likely be opposed by the Justice Department and Congress.
- “On Lawyering” on collateral consequences (5/27/2016) - The following post was originally published at On Lawyering, CCRC President Rich Cassidy’s blog on the law and culture of lawyering. Judge Rules That That the Collateral Consequences of Conviction Justify the Release of a Drug Offender “Earth’s most impassable barriers – as Lincoln the lawyer knew, as Lincoln the writer knew – are often those formed not of walls and trenches, nor even of mountains and oceans, but of laws and words.”[1] Senior United States District Judge Fredric Block, in an opinion issued on May 24, [2] ruled that the collateral consequences faced by a 20 year old woman convicted of smuggling 602 grams of cocaine into the United States from Jamaica, justified a one year term of probation, even though she faced a guideline sentence of 33-41 months of imprisonment. Judge Block reviewed the history of collateral consequences, concluding that “[t]oday, the collateral consequences of a felony conviction form a new civil death[,]”[3] referring to the scholarly work of my colleagues, Gabriel Jack Chin and Margaret Love. He decried the racially disparate impact of these laws, citing Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow (2010). He noted the existence of collateral consequence reform efforts including an ABA Criminal Justice [...]
- Will Prez Obama make federal contractors ban the box? [Update: Not now.] (4/29/2016) - Updated April 29: According to comments late this week from senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett, the President remains inclined to defer to Congress when it comes to making federal contractors ban the box: Asked whether there was consideration of whether to take action to require federal contractors to “ban the box,” Jarrett said, “The president has supported federal legislation that would ban the box for federal contractors. He thinks that’s the best approach.” The legislation in question appears to have stalled, as noted by its sponsor Rep. Elijah Cummings. (In a tweet, Jarrett pointed advocates to a 2013 directive of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance reminding contractors of their obligation to comply with the EEOC guidance on criminal records.) On the other hand, on Friday the administration made good on its November promise to require federal agencies to ban the box, when OPM announced a proposed rule requiring federal agencies to postpone inquiry into an applicant’s criminal record until after a conditional offer of employment has been made. Also, marking the end of National Reentry Week, the President formally established the Federal Interagency Reentry Council, a Cabinet-level working group dedicated to “the rehabilitation and reintegration of individuals returning [...]
- Federal sentencing and collateral consequences (4/15/2016) - This practice resource is available in PDF format here. A follow-up piece, “Federal sentencing and collateral consequences II,” is here. Federal courts are frequently asked to take into account the collateral consequences of conviction in determining what sentence to impose under the criteria in 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a). It is generally permissible for them to do so, and in line with current proposals of national law reform organizations. At the same time, courts must guard against the risk of socioeconomic bias favoring more privileged defendants who have the most to lose in the civil sphere, and who are likely to enjoy more vigorous and effective advocacy around collateral consequences. The following discussion first reviews a federal court’s general obligation to understand the collateral consequences that apply in a particular case, and to ensure that a defendant considering a guilty plea has been adequately advised about them. It then reviews post-Booker case law approving below-guideline sentences based on the severe collateral penalties applicable to a particular defendant, such as loss of employment, extraordinary family circumstances, sex offender registration, and even reputational harm (“the stigma of conviction”). Finally, it discusses cases in which courts of appeal have refused to approve deep sentencing discounts based on collateral consequences [...]
- New federal screening requirements for child care workers (2/25/2016) - Child care workers in every state are subject to rigorous criminal background checks that may result in mandatory bars to employment. Until now, each state has been generally free to define its own standards regarding screening for criminal history. That is about to change. By September of next year, states receiving funds under the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014 (which appropriates over $ 2.5 billion each year to fund state child care and child welfare programs) must adopt minimum federally-defined screening standards for child care workers or risk loss of funding. The revised statutory standards subject current and prospective child care workers to a multi-level criminal background check and disqualify from employment anyone convicted of crimes against children, specified violent crimes, and drug crimes within the past 5 years. States may opt to waive the disqualification for drug crimes on a case-by-case basis, but they are also free to adopt conviction-based disqualifications that are more restrictive than the law requires. If the new CCDBG standards were not bad enough, the Department of Health and Human Services has issued proposed rules that would make them worse. On Monday, the CCRC joined a coalition of organizations led [...]
- Should DOJ be gatekeeper of president’s pardon power? (8/31/2015) - Last week Sentencing Law & Policy highlighted a new article by CCRC director Margaret Love that examines the Justice Department’s historical role in administering the president’s pardon power. The article (“Justice Department Administration of the President’s Pardon Power: A Case Study in Institutional Conflict of Interest”) concludes that an institutional conflict of interest has made Justice a progressively less responsible and effective steward of the constitutional power, and urges the president to relocate the pardon program to the Executive Office of the President. The article, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the University of Toledo Law Review, can be downloaded here. Here is its abstract: The president’s constitutional pardon power has been administered by the attorney general since before the Civil War, but this arrangement has never been adequately explained or justified. On its face it appears rife with conflict of institutional interests: how could the agency responsible for convicting people and putting them in prison also be tasked with forgiving them and setting them free? In spite of these apparently antithetical missions, the Justice Department managed the pardon program in a low-key and reliable manner for well over a century, staffing it with a handful of career lawyers operating on a [...]
- Amicus invited in federal expungement case (8/7/2015) - For those following developments in the federal expungement case currently pending before Judge John Gleeson in the Eastern District of New York, Jane Doe v. United States (Jane Doe II), the following order was entered by the court on August 6: ORDER: Margaret Love, a nationally-recognized authority on collateral consequences and co-author of the treatise Collateral Consequences of a Criminal Conviction: Law, Policy and Practice (NACDL/West 2013), is respectfully invited to submit an amicus brief addressing the issues raised in my July 28, 2015 Order (i.e., the authority of the court to enter a certificate of rehabilitation and the appropriateness of doing so in this case) as well as any other matters that may be relevant to the adjudication of defendant’s motion. The government’s brief is due on August 28, and petitioner’s brief is due September 11. Argument is scheduled for September 18. Meanwhile, no briefing schedule has yet been set in the appeal of Judge Gleeson’s May 21 expungement order in the first Jane Doe case.
- Federal expungement case gets curiouser and curiouser (7/29/2015) - Visitors to this site are familiar with the expungement order issued by Federal District Judge John Gleeson on May 21. See Jane Doe v. United States, now on appeal to the Second Circuit. A second Jane Doe, a codefendant of the first, applied for expungement on June 23, and on June 29 Judge Gleeson ordered the government to show cause on or before August 28 why her application should not be granted. A hearing has been scheduled for September 18. Yesterday the Judge issued a new order directing the government to include in its briefing “its view as to whether I have authority to enter a certificate of rehabilitation in lieu of expungement, and if so, the appropriateness of entering such a certificate in this case.”