Colorado
Restoration of Rights Project – Colorado Profile
Guide to restoration of rights, pardon, sealing & expungement following a Colorado criminal conviction
The Consequences of Conviction – Sanctions Beyond the Sentence Under Colorado Law
Guide to collateral consequences under Colorado law by the Colorado State Public Defender (2014)
Related blog posts:
- Illinois set to become fifth state to cover criminal record discrimination in its fair employment law (2/13/2021) - In our recent report on criminal record reforms enacted in 2020, we noted that there were only four states that had fully incorporated criminal record into their fair employment law as a prohibited basis of discrimination. These states (New York, Wisconsin, Hawaii, and California) provide that employers can only disqualify a person based on their record if it meets a [...]
- New 2019 laws restore voting rights in 11 states (1/22/2020) - This is the first in a series of comments describing some of the 153 laws passed in 2019 restoring rights or delivering record relief in various ways. The full report on 2019 laws is available here. Restoration of Civil Rights Voting In 2019, eleven states took steps to restore the right to vote and to expand awareness of voting eligibility. [...]
- UPDATED: 50-State Chart on Relief from Sex Offender Registration (11/21/2019) - We have completed an overhaul of our 50-State chart on relief from sex offender registration obligations, to bring it up to date and ensure that it is thorough and accurate. This chart documents the duration of sex offender registration requirements, as well as legal mechanisms for early termination from such requirements. In conducting this review, we have identified a handful of [...]
- Colorado limits immigration consequences of a criminal record (7/2/2019) - Colorado joins other states this session that passed legislation to avoid federal immigration consequences of state criminal matters. The new Colorado laws—SB 30 and HB 1148—work at different stages of criminal proceedings to protect people from possible deportation: SB 30 remedies past wrongs by vacating unconstitutional guilty pleas, and SB 1148 will prevent future deportations resulting from potential one-year sentences. [...]
- More states enact major “second chance” reforms (6/11/2018) - In recent weeks, three more states — Colorado, Louisiana and Vermont — have enacted laws intended to make it easier for people with a criminal record to find and keep employment, or otherwise to regain rights and status. We are just now noting Wyoming’s enactment in March 2018 of general standards for professional and occupational licensure, which impose new restrictions [...]
- 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 [...]
- Long waits for expungement frustrate public safety purposes (2/18/2015) - 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 [...]
- Is pardon making a comeback? Probably not, but law reform may be (1/21/2015) - A recent issue of Governing Magazine reports that pardoning is “making a comeback” after decades of neglect. It would be nice if it were true. But the evidence of comeback is thin. Almost all of the jurisdictions where pardoning is thriving today are the same ones where it was thriving a decade ago. In a dozen states, including Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Nebraska, [...]
- Louisiana’s new expungement law: How does it stack up? (1/16/2015) - Louisiana has far and away the largest prison population of any state in the country (847 per 100,000 people — Mississippi is second with 692 per), but until last year there was little that those returning home after serving felony sentences could do to unshackle themselves from their criminal records and the collateral consequences that accompany them. While Louisiana has [...]
- A pardon celebrates the life of a public defender (12/29/2014) - 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 [...]