Maryland
Restoration of Rights Project – Maryland Profile
Guide to restoration of rights, pardon, sealing & expungement following a Maryland criminal conviction
Final Report of the Collateral Consequences Workgroup
Report of workgroup charged by Governor Hogan and the 2016 Justice Reinvestment Act with investigating and making recommendations for reform of Maryland collateral consequences (2016)
The Collateral Consequences of Arrests and Convictions under D.C., Maryland, and Virginia Law
By the Washington Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs (2014)
Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions in Maryland
Reentry of Ex-Offenders Clinic, University of Maryland School of Law (2007)
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. [...]
- Collateral Consequences in Occupational Licensing Act (6/29/2018) - We’ve noted in recent posts the numerous states that, just in the past three or four months, have enacted broad occupational licensing reforms affecting people with a criminal record. Many of these new laws have been influenced by a model developed by the Institute for Justice (IJ), a libertarian public interest law firm that has been litigating and lobbying to [...]
- More states facilitating licensing for people with a criminal record (4/18/2018) - Last week we posted a description of a detailed new Indiana law regulating consideration of conviction in occupational and professional licensure throughout the state. It now appears that this may represent a trend, as eight additional states have either recently enacted or are poised to enact similarly progressive occupational licensing schemes. New general laws regulating licensure are in place in Arizona, Illinois, and Massachusetts. [...]
- 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 [...]
- New era for expungement reform? Too soon to tell. (8/3/2016) - A new article in the Harvard Law & Policy Review evaluates some of the recent legislative efforts to deliver relief from the burden of collateral consequences through new or expanded expungement laws. In “A New Era for Expungement Law Reform? Recent Developments at the State and Federal Levels,” Brian Murray argues that many of the newer record-closing laws are far too modest in [...]
- Expungement expansion round-up (2016 edition) (5/23/2016) - More and more states are enacting new expungement and sealing laws, or expanding existing ones, some covering convictions for the first time. The first four months of 2016 alone saw courts given significant new authority to limit access to criminal records in four states, and bills have been introduced in several others that promise more new laws in months to [...]
- Why shouldn’t everybody with a felony conviction be allowed to vote? (6/1/2015) - The editors of the New York Times are critical of Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s recent veto of a law that would have allowed anyone with a felony conviction to vote if they are living in the free community. See “A Bad Voting Ban,” June 1, 2015. Maryland’s law now disenfranchises anyone convicted of a “felony and . . . actually [...]
- New Maryland law allows “shielding” of some misdemeanor convictions (5/28/2015) - Earlier this month, Maryland governor Larry Hogan signed the Second Chance Act of 2015, 2015 Md. Laws 313 (HB 244), which allows eligible persons to petition a court for “shielding” (or sealing) certain misdemeanor records. This is the first time Maryland has authorized limits on public access to conviction records other than nuisance offenses and offenses that have been pardoned. [...]
- State courts question mandatory lifetime sex offender registration (1/4/2015) - Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s decisions in Connecticut Department of Public Safety v. Doe, 538 U.S. 1 (2003) and Smith v. Doe, 538 U.S. 84 (2003), state courts are coming to different conclusions under their own constitutions about whether sex offender registration and notification laws constitute punishment for purposes of due process and ex post facto analysis. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is the most recent [...]