Florida’s vote restoration process held unconstitutional

In a strongly-worded opinion, a federal judge has ruled that Florida’s method of restoring voting rights to individuals convicted of felonies violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.  In Hand v. Scott, a suit brought by seven individuals either denied restoration of rights by the State Clemency Board or ineligible to apply, U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker held that Florida’s “arbitrary” and “crushingly restrictive” restoration scheme, in which “elected, partisan officials have extraordinary authority to grant or withhold the right to vote from hundreds of thousands of people without any constraints, guidelines, or standards,” violates rights of free speech and association, and risks viewpoint and other discrimination. As reported in this local press article, Governor Scott’s office issued a statement late Thursday, hinting at an appeal.  Scott was the principal architect of the current system that requires all applicants for clemency to wait at least five years after they complete their sentences, serve probation and pay all restitution, before they may be considered for restoration of the vote and other civil rights.  Throughout his 43-page ruling, Judge Walker cited the arbitrariness of Florida’s system, noting that people have been denied their voting rights because they received speeding tickets or failed to […]

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Michigan sex offender registration law held unconstitutional

On January 24, the Michigan Supreme Court held the state’s sex offender registration scheme unconstitutional on due process grounds as applied to one Boban Temelkoski.  Temelkoski had pleaded guilty under a youthful offender statute with the expectation that no collateral consequences would attach to the disposition if he successfully completed its conditions.  However, several years later a registration requirement was enacted and applied retroactively to his case.  Because the court decided Temelkoski’s case on due process grounds, it did not need to address arguments that application of the registration statute to him constituted constitutionally impermissible punishment.  However, the court hinted in dicta how it might decide that issue, stating that “It is undisputed that registration under SORA constitutes a civil disability.”  While a win is a win, we must wait another day for a decision on the constitutionality of Michigan’s registration scheme under the Ex Post Facto Clause and the State’s version of the Eighth Amendment. An analysis of the Temelkoski decision by Asli Bashir, a 2017 graduate of Yale Law School, follows.

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Living with a marijuana conviction after legalization (updated)

Jacob Sullum, senior editor at Reason, has written a fabulous article about expungement of marijuana convictions in places that have since legalized marijuana: so far 10 states, DC, and the Northern Mariana Islands have legalized.  The piece is currently available to Reason subscribers and will be available to the public in the coming weeks (we will update this post with the link). Sullum tells the stories of eleven individuals, from the jurisdictions that have legalized, who describe how their marijuana convictions have impacted their lives before and after legalization.  He documents the lingering legal and social sanctions that burden people long after they have served their sentences, sanctions that “seem especially unjust and irrational in the growing number of U.S. jurisdictions that have legalized marijuana for recreational use.”

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Expungement in Indiana – A radical experiment and how it is working so far

Note: This is the first of what we anticipate will be a series of reports on some of the more progressive restoration schemes enacted in the past several years.   Marion County Deputy Prosecutor Andrew Fogle says the four years since Indiana enacted a broad “second chance” law have been like “the Wild West.”  Fogle, who oversees petitions for expungement for his office in Indiana’s most populous county, agreed to be interviewed about what may be the Nation’s most comprehensive and creative scheme to overcome the adverse effects of a criminal record.  We also spoke about the law to a number of criminal defense attorneys and legal service providers in the State.   Indiana’s expungement law, first enacted in 2013 and amended several times since, extends to all but the most serious offenses, although the effect of relief as well as the process for obtaining it differs considerably depending on the offense involved.  Perhaps most important, the term “expungement” doesn’t have the same meaning in Indiana as it has in most states, because it doesn’t necessarily result in limiting access to the record.

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New report: Roundup of 2017 expungement and restoration laws

A new report from the Collateral Consequences Resource Center shows that states across the country are continuing to expand opportunities to avoid or mitigate the adverse effects of a criminal record.  If anything, the trend first documented last winter in Four Years of Second Chance Reforms, 2013 – 2016 has accelerated in 2017.  Second Chance Reforms in 2017 identifies 23 states, blue and red, that in the past year broadened existing second chance laws or enacted entirely new ones, enhancing the prospects for successful reentry and reintegration for many thousands of Americans.  Using research from the Restoration of Rights Project, the report describes specific changes to the law in each state during the past year along with relevant citations, analyzing and comparing approaches taken by different states. The most frequent type of reform involves limiting public access to criminal records: new sealing or expungement laws were enacted in several states that previously had none, eligibility requirements were relaxed for many existing record-sealing authorities, and new limits were imposed on access to non-conviction and juvenile records – all making it easier for more individuals to get relief at an earlier date. However, there is remarkably little consistency among state record-closing schemes, and most states […]

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