Restoration of Rights Project – Alabama Profile
Guide to restoration of rights, pardon, sealing & expungement following an Alabama criminal conviction
Sentencing Reference Manual for Circuit and District Judges
Alabama Sentencing Commission (2012) – Includes information on collateral consequences triggered by state and federal felony convictions.
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- Reintegration Champion Awards for 2021 (1/27/2022) - Based on our annual report on 2021 criminal record reforms, the bipartisan commitment to a reintegration agenda keeps getting stronger. A majority of the 151 new laws enacted last year authorize courts to clear criminal records, in some states for the very first time, and several states enacted “clean slate” automatic record clearing. Other new laws restore voting and other civil rights lost as a result of conviction, and still others limit how criminal record is considered by employers, occupational licensing agencies, and landlords. (The report includes specific citations to each of the new laws, and they are analyzed in the larger context of each state's reintegration scheme in our Restoration of Rights Project.) Again this year we have published a Report Card recognizing the most (and least) productive legislatures in the past year. While more than a dozen states enacted noteworthy laws in 2021, two states stand out for the quantity and quality of their lawmaking: Arizona and Connecticut share our 2021 Reintegration Champion award for their passage of three or more major pieces of record reform legislation. Arizona – The state enacted eight new laws, including a broad new record clearing law, two laws improving its occupational licensing scheme, and a judicial “second chance” certificate. Arizona also repealed a law authorizing suspension of driver’s licenses for failure to pay and authorized its courts to redesignate some felonies as misdemeanors. Connecticut – Enacted a major automatic record clearing scheme, restored the right to vote and hold office upon release from prison, provided for record clearing in connection with marijuana legalization, and broadened expungement for victims of human trafficking. Another eight states and the District of Columbia earned Honorable Mention for their enactment of at least one major new law: Alabama – Enacted first state record-clearing authority applicable to misdemeanor convictions and pardoned felonies, and extended non-conviction sealing. California – Gave retroactive effect to automatic conviction sealing law enacted in 2019. (This new law may be the most consequential of any enacted last year in terms of its impact on criminal records in the state, and it was done without fanfare or publicity.) District of Columbia – Enacted a comprehensive scheme to limit consideration of criminal record in occupational licensing. Illinois – Added employment discrimination based on conviction to the state Human Rights Act, authorized voter education for prisoners. New Jersey – Enacted a landmark fair housing bill; made some improvements to its 1970’s-era occupational licensing law; and, provided for automatic record clearing in connection with marijuana legalization. (New Jersey was our Reintegration Champion for 2019, but evidently is not resting on its laurels.) New Mexico – Improved 1970’s-era public employment and licensing law; authorized expungement of marijuana convictions; and, enacted a substantial part of the Uniform Collateral Consequences of Conviction Act, limiting and providing relief from collateral consequences. Ohio – Expanded eligibility for record-clearing; significantly improved occupational licensing law. Virginia – Authorized petition-based and automated record-clearing of non-convictions and convictions, including convictions for marijuana possession; restored vote upon release by executive order and took steps to amend constitution to this end. Washington – restored vote upon release from prison; amended occupational licensing standards for health professions; repealed driver’s license suspension based on outstanding financial obligations Low marks go to three states that enacted no record reform laws at all in 2021. While there are six other states in this category this year, the legislatures of Alaska, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin earn their place at the bottom of the heap for having been equally unproductive in 2020 and 2019, years in which almost every other state passed at least some law limiting access to and use of criminal records. The profile of each state's restoration of rights scheme from CCRC’s Restoration of Rights Project is linked above (except for the states that made no progress). The profiles contain citations and links to the relevant new laws so that interested individuals can check their specific terms.
- New research report: Four Years of Second Chance Reforms, 2013-2016 (2/8/2017) - Introduction Since 2013, almost every state has taken at least some steps to chip away at the negative effects of a criminal record on an individual’s ability to earn a living, access housing, education and public benefits, and otherwise fully participate in civil society. It has not been an easy task, in part because of the volume and complexity of state and federal laws imposing collateral consequences. To encourage employers and other decision-makers to give convicted individuals a fair chance, some states have enacted or modified judicial restoration mechanisms like expungement, sealing, and certificates of relief. Others have extended nondiscrimination laws, limited criminal record inquiries, and facilitated front-end opportunities to avoid conviction. In partnership with the NACDL Restoration of Rights Project, the CCRC maintains a comprehensive and current state-by-state guide to mechanisms for restoration of rights and status after conviction. As a part of keeping that resource up to date, we have inventoried measures enacted and policies adopted by states in the past four years to mitigate or avoid the disabling effects of a criminal record, and present it here as a snapshot of an encouraging national trend. Summary of findings Between 2013 and 2016, forty-two states and the District of Columbia adopted significant reforms of various types. The most common of these reforms are ban-the-box laws and policies that prohibit employers from inquiring into an applicant’s criminal history during the initial stages of the application process. Twenty-one states banned the box in public employment, and eight (CT, DC, IL, MN, NJ, OR, RI, and VT) expanded their ban-the-box prohibitions to cover private employers as well. Expungement and sealing authorities were also expanded in a significant number of states. Arkansas, Indiana, and Minnesota enacted comprehensive new expungement/sealing schemes that grant many individuals an opportunity to have their records sealed from public view and/or rights restored for the first time. Additionally, California, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Missouri all expanded existing expungement/sealing laws to make certain felonies eligible. Maryland, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota enacted entirely new authorities limiting public access to misdemeanor records. Another fifteen states expanded existing expungement or sealing opportunities, either to increase the number and type of eligible offenses and dispositions, or to broaden the protections afforded to, or rights restored by, an expunged or sealed record. Unfortunately, stiff filing fees in states like Louisiana and Kentucky will inevitably discourage people of limited means from taking advantage of these new authorities. Judicial and/or administrative “certificates of relief” were also made available in nine states for the first time. These certificates adhere to a “forgiving,” as opposed to “forgetting,” model of criminal record mitigation. The new certificates with the broadest application and effect are those in Ohio and Vermont, both of which are modeled after provisions in the Uniform Collateral Consequences of Conviction Act (UCCCA) that authorize courts to completely remove specified mandatory collateral consequences imposed by law, allowing individuals to be considered for employment or licensing opportunities on the merits. Colorado's new "order of collateral relief" provides relief from mandatory consequences specified in the order, with exceptions, but is only available for non-prison sentences. The new certificate authorities in most other states either protect employers and/or other private entities from negligent hiring or retention claims based solely upon their agent’s conviction, or prohibit employers or licensing bodies from denying applicants “based solely upon” their conviction. The effect or availability of pre-existing certificate authorities were expanded in another three states. Another notable trend was the expansion of the effect and availability of deferred adjudication and diversion mechanisms, which allow individuals to avoid conviction altogether following successful completion of probation or other conditions. Five states (AL, CA, DE, GA, NJ) enacted legislation explicitly authorizing expungement or sealing of deferred adjudication records for the first time, while Colorado and Illinois enacted entirely new deferred adjudication authority. These programs provide a great benefit to those who can take advantage of them, but, in many states, prosecutorial control of these programs can result in disparate treatment and costly relief. >>View the full report below or download here<<
- The New Southern Strategy Coalition works on criminal records reform in the South (12/2/2014) - “I don’t know why everyone is talking about the New Jim Crow; in the South the old one never went away.” – 2013 New Southern Strategy Coalition conference participant Introduction The New Southern Strategy Coalition is a collaborative network of Southern advocacy groups and their national allies, originally convened in 2011 and dedicated to reducing the negative consequences of a criminal record in the South. Because the South has always been seen as a region resistant to criminal justice reform, many national groups do not have a presence there, and state-based advocacy efforts are generally underfunded and understaffed. The voices of those most affected are missing from southern state capitols, and the region is often left out of the national dialogue altogether. NSSC addresses these challenges by providing opportunities for southern organizations to network and share information about regional best practices to minimize legal barriers to reentry. The premise is that state-specific reform efforts in the South will be supported and magnified by the Coalition’s collective goals operating across a unified landscape. NSSC holds regional conferences to discuss effective reform strategies, provides training and materials, ensures that the voices of directly affected individuals are included in a meaningful way, and uses web-based and social media tools to leverage reform efforts. NSSC hopes to lay the foundation for a stronger movement for the reform of reentry policies, both in the South and nationally. While the Coalition recognizes that minimizing interactions with the criminal justice system is the ultimate goal, we have chosen the lens of reentry and collateral consequences as an effective reform tool in a region that has not dealt with its legacy of racism, and which unabashedly declares support for “law and order” policies. Opening the dialogue with efforts to reduce recidivism paves the way for a broader conversation about drug policy and front-end criminal justice reform. NSSC’s vision is that all people throughout the nation have American citizenship rights to fair and equitable opportunities to thrive and succeed politically, socially and economically. Our mission is to be a diverse, Southern-based catalytic force for change, working with national allies and people directly impacted by the criminal justice system and their families, to remove the barriers they face to full participation in society, using direct services, education, organizing, advocacy, and litigation. The Need for a Southern Coalition The Coalition is particularly important for two reasons. First, the South has been ground zero in the build-up of the U.S. prison population. Overall, the United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, but it is the South that has led this growth trend. Nationwide one in 31 adults is behind bars, on probation or on parole, but in Georgia, for example, one in 13 adults is under correctional control. Second, Southern states tend to have more restrictive barriers to reentry than in other regions, perpetuating a cycle of arrest and recidivism. This was established by the Legal Action Center's seminal report, After Prison: Roadblocks to Reentry. Given the disproportionate effect of these barriers on communities of color, the need for a regional effort becomes clear. Research has shown that a criminal record constitutes more of a barrier to employment for black men than it does for white men as reported by Devah Pager in Marked: Race, Crime, and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration. The last census found 47% of Black Americans live in the 14 states encompassed by the New Southern Strategy Coalition, and recent reports indicate a trend of black migration to the South. Our experience as southern-based advocates teaches us that reform strategies that work in California or New York are not always effective in Alabama or Mississippi. Also, conservative southern legislators, who dominate our state houses, are generally more interested in what is happening around the region rather than what is happening in other parts of the country. There are many underfunded and understaffed Southern state and local groups that care about these issues and want to become more involved in advocating for change. Unfortunately, national funders are often reluctant to invest in the South because of the lack of infrastructure and capacity of non-profit and advocacy organizations. (See Grantmakers for Southern Progress.) A goal of the Coalition is to strengthen the capacity of these organizations, and through partnership, produce greater results than each group could accomplish on their own. Structure and Activities of the Coalition NSSC is led by a steering committee that consists of several state-based organizations – Georgia Justice Project, The Southern Coalition for Social Justice (North Carolina), South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, LifeLine to Success (Tennessee), and One Voice Mississippi – and two national partners – the National H.I.R.E. Network and the National Employment Law Project. Members have largely donated their time over the last three years to bring the idea of the Coalition to fruition. Beyond the steering committee, NSSC is a loose network of individuals and organizations working on reentry and criminal justice reform. Over 90 individuals, representing over 57 different organizations, have participated in the Coalition by attending one or both of the regional meetings or as presenters on the webinars. NSSC held regional meetings in 2011 in Atlanta, GA and in 2013 in Durham, NC. In 2014, state meetings were held in Mississippi and Tennessee. The NSSC has also hosted several webinars, with its latest webinar coming up on Wednesday, December 3rd, “Reactions to Ferguson from Arch City Defenders.” Please join this effort by signing up on the website, www.newsouthernstrategy.org. After joining, you will receive an email with a passcode that will allow you to log into the members section of the website. It may take up to one week to receive the passcode.
- More states rely on judicial expungement to avoid collateral consequences (11/7/2014) - Oklahoma is the most recent state to expand its expungement laws to make more people eligible for record-clearing at an earlier date. While the specific changes adopted by the Oklahoma legislature are relatively modest, involving reduced waiting periods and fewer disqualifying priors, they are significant as part of a national trend toward enlarging this type of "forgetting" relief for people with minor criminal records. Details of Oklahoma’s law are available here. Other states that have enacted new expungement laws or broadened existing ones in the past two years include Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, and Tennessee. Alabama's new expungement law is the first record-closing law in that state and applies only to non-conviction records. Arkansas and Minnesota broadened or consolidated existing expungement schemes that were already quite extensive. The Indiana expungement scheme is entirely new and particularly comprehensive and progressive. (An analysis of the new law by its primary sponsor in the Indiana legislature will be posted in this space very soon.) The effect of this type of "forgetting" relief varies widely from state to state, from complete destruction of records in states like Pennsylvania and Connecticut to more limited relief in Kansas and Indiana, where expunged records remain accessible to some employers as well as law enforcement. The other type of individualized judicial relief from collateral consequences that is growing in popularity relies not on limiting public access to a person’s criminal record, but instead on removing legal barriers and providing reassurances to employers and other decision-makers. Judicial certificate programs have been enacted in the past year by Vermont and Rhode Island, following similar programs enacted in 2012 in Ohio and North Carolina. This more transparent “forgiving” relief tends to apply to a broader range of offenses than expungement, and may meet less resistance from law enforcement, business and the media than record-closing laws. Mainstream law reform organizations like the Uniform Law Commission and the American Law Institute have adopted the "forgiving" as opposed to the "forgetting" model of relief represented by expungement and sealing statutes. Vermont is the first state to enact the Uniform Collateral Consequences of Conviction Act in its entirety, as described here. The ALI's approval of the Model Penal Code: Sentencing collateral consequences provisions is described here. A 50-state summary chart of judicial relief provisions, prepared for the NACDL Restoration of Rights Project, is available here. The Wall Street Journal will publish a national study of expungement laws sometime in the next few weeks.