Job seekers applying for work with the state of Georgia will no longer need to disclose prior criminal convictions on their initial applications.” The order provides that this new policy “will allow returning citizens an opportunity to explain their unique circumstances in person to a potential employer.” Read more
The certificate system for restoring rights after conviction in New York no longer serves its intended purposes, according to an investigation by City Limits. The problem is that Certificates of Relief from Disabilities (CRD) are supposed to be a means to rehabilitation for people sentenced to probation, but the judges authorized to issue them see them (in the words of one public defender) “as a gold star, as a thing you get after you’ve been rehabilitated.” The Parole Board appears similarly Read more
During the week of February 2, Professor James Jacobs posted a series of opinion pieces on The Volokh Conspiracy blog to promote his new book on criminal records. The basic argument advanced in these pieces, which condense the final two chapters of the book, is that “criminal record based employment discrimination is neither immoral nor illegal.” While I am not a lawyer, and leave it to my colleagues Sharon Dietrich and Adam Klein to speak to the legal arguments in Professor Jacobs’ pieces, I believe I can speak to the public policy implications (if not the morality) of his position. That I myself have a criminal record, am now an employer, and have spent 13 years since exiting prison working on these policy issues, ought to be considered by anyone who reads what I have to say.
A second federal court in Pennsylvania has held that the federal felon-in possession statute cannot constitutionally be applied to an individual convicted many years ago of a minor non-violent offense. In Suarez v. Holder, the district court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania held that a man convicted in 1990 of misdemeanor possession of an unregistered handgun and sentenced to probation was “no more dangerous than a typical law-abiding citizen,” and therefore entitled to claim the protection of the Second Amendment. The Suarez court followed the reasoning of the court in Binderup v. Holder, decided in Pennsylvania’s Eastern District in September. The government has appealed the Binderup decision, and the government’s brief is due this month. Read more
Recently, in commenting on a new expungement scheme enacted by the Louisiana legislature, we noted the disconnect between the stated reentry-related purposes of the law and its lengthy eligibility waiting periods. If people have to log many years of law-abiding conduct before they can even apply for this relief, it is not likely to be of much help to people returning home from prison. Were Louisiana lawmakers unaware that the new expungement law would be unlikely to serve its stated purposes, or did they have some reason for advertising the new law in terms they knew were inapt.
In a recent series of posts on The Volokh Conspiracy blog promoting his book The Eternal Criminal Record, Professor James Jacobs “[speaks] strongly against a public policy that coerces private employers to ignore job applicants’ criminal records while leaving them to cover the costs imposed by ex-offender employees.” His arguments suggest that employers are being saddled with such costs (for which no proof whatsoever is presented) because of social activism on behalf of people with criminal records. In fact, modest legal protections for people with criminal records derive from longstanding employment discrimination law principles.
The New York Court of Appeals is considering how candid a person must be about his prior criminal record when applying to law school. During oral argument on February 12 in Matter of Powers v. St.
John’s University School of Law, several judges raised public policy concerns over the law school’s summary rescission of David Powers’ admission midway through his second year, based on how he had described his criminal record on his original application. Powers had disclosed a past conviction for drug possession, but did not also report that he had initially faced more serious charges of drug-dealing. These underlying charges came to light mid-way through Powers’ second year, when he sought clarification from the New York courts as to whether his criminal record would preclude his admission to the bar.
According to an account of the argument in the New York Law Journal, “[Powers] involvement with drugs seemed to concern state Court of Appeals judges less than St. John’s University’s decision to rescind his admission to law school.”
In recent months, heightened attention has been paid to the background check practices of the ride-sharing company Uber. Concerns about the safety of Uber services prompted the District Attorney’s Offices of San Francisco and Los Angeles Counties to file suit last December against Uber for misleading customers about the scope of its driver background checks. As discussed in a previous post, Uber has largely resisted efforts by legislators to mandate more intensive background checks, but the pressure continues to mount.
This pressure for enhanced background checks has raised another area of concern: the manner in which Uber conducts background checks, and the impact of its employment practices on drivers and prospective drivers. At the end of 2014, our organizations, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the law firm Goldstein, Borgen, Dardarian & Ho, filed a putative, nationwide class action lawsuit against Uber, based in part on its violation of federal and state background check laws.
In a wide-ranging interview with Buzzfeed’s Ben Smith posted on February 11, President Obama was asked about the employment difficulties faced by young black men with a felony record. His response suggests that he may be interested in addressing through his pardon power the problems faced by people with federal convictions seeking restoration of rights and status, as he addressed them through law-making as a member of the Illinois legislature. This in turn suggests to us that the Justice Department may now be engaged, at the President’s direction, in a more proactive consideration of applications for a full presidential pardon. We post the exchange in full, so our readers can judge its import for themselves: Read more
Comparing the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) 2008 decision in S. and Marper v. the United Kingdom with the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2013 decision in Maryland v. King provides a window on the very different legal status of criminal records in the Europe and U.S. S. and Marper also illuminates the growing chasm between the U.K. and continental Europe when it comes to informational privacy and police records. As illustrated in prior posts, many criminal justice practices that are common in the U.S. are regarded as a serious invasion of privacy in Europe, and therefore a human rights violation. As evidenced by the caselaw discussed below, this includes the blanket and indefinite retention of DNA and fingerprint information.