Restoration of Rights Project – Ohio Profile
Guide to restoration of rights, pardon, sealing & expungement following an Ohio criminal conviction
Civil Impacts of Criminal Convictions under Ohio Law (CIVICC) Database
Ohio Justice & Policy Center; Office of the Ohio Public Defender
Related blog posts:
- 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...
- New occupational licensing laws in 2021 (6/10/2021) - In the first five months of 2021, seven states and the District of Columbia enacted nine separate laws improving opportunities for people with a criminal record to obtain occupational licenses. This continues a four-year trend begun in 2017 that has seen 33 states and the District of Columbia enact 54 separate laws regulating consideration of criminal record in the licensing process. Our report on new legislation in 2020 noted that “[o]f all the criminal record reforms enacted during this modern reintegration reform era, no other approaches the regulation of occupational licensing agencies in terms of breadth, consistency, and likely efficacy.” Laws...
- Two significant new occupational licensing laws enacted in 2021 (2/4/2021) - After 11 states enacted 19 laws limiting consideration of criminal records by occupational licensing agencies last year, the first significant record reforms of 2021 are occupational licensing laws enacted by Ohio and the District of Columbia. D.C.’s new law is particularly comprehensive, and applies both to health-related and other licensed professions in the District. The new District of Columbia law, Act A23-0561, is described in detail in the DC profile from the Restoration of Rights Project. It provides that no one may be denied a license based on conviction of a crime unless it is “directly related” to the licensed...
- Searchable on-line inventories of collateral consequences: How they operate and how they are maintained (4/12/2019) - There are currently only three on-line collections of collateral consequences, one national and two state-specific (Ohio and North Carolina). All three can be searched and sorted, and all three are regularly updated, making them indispensable practice tools for lawyers and essential guides for advocates and people with a criminal record. Each of these inventories is described below by the individuals who helped create them and now administer them. They explain how the inventories were created and how they are maintained, and how they operate to inform and assist people interested in understanding the legal and regulatory restrictions that affect people...
- Bumper crop of new expungement laws expected in 2019 (4/9/2019) - Earlier this year we reported that, in 2018, legislatures enacted an unprecedented number of new laws aimed at restoring rights and opportunities for people with a criminal record. (Last year 32 states, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands enacted 61 new laws to facilitate reentry and reintegration.) The first quarter of 2019 has already produced a baker’s dozen of new restoration laws, some quite significant, indicating that this year is likely to be every bit as productive as last. The 13 new laws enhance access to record-clearing relief, occupational licensing and employment, and executive clemency. Also notable, if only for the sheer...
- How effective are judicial certificates in relieving collateral consequences? (3/14/2017) - An empirical study of Ohio’s judicial “certificate of qualification for employment” finds that it is “an effective avenue for lessening the stigma of a criminal record” in the context of employment and licensing. The certificate, authorized in 2012, lifts mandatory legal restrictions and limits employer liability for negligent hiring claims, with the goal of ensuring that employment and licensing decisions about certificate holders are on a case-by-case basis, on the merits. The court-issued certificate is available to anyone with any Ohio conviction, no matter how serious, as long as they have completed their sentence and can show that they are...
- 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...
- Study shows certificates work to create job opportunities (5/25/2016) - A new empirical study provides important evidence that “certificates of recovery/relief” can be effective in facilitating employment opportunities for people with a criminal record. Two University of South Carolina criminologists have concluded that employers in Ohio are willing to look beyond the criminal histories of job applicants who have been issued a Certificate of Qualification for Employment (CQE) from a state court. The study, which involved sending fictitious resumes to over 300 employers in the Columbus area, found that individuals with a felony drug conviction were more than three times as likely to receive a job interview or offer if they had received a CQE....
- When is a sex offender not a sex offender in Ohio? (3/12/2015) - The Ohio Supreme Court is considering whether a young man whose conviction requires him to register as a sex offender should be excused from this collateral consequence on grounds that it violates the state constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. The transcript of the March 10 oral argument in Blankenship v. State of Ohio, Case no. 2014-0363, suggests that the Ohio high court may be poised to invalidate the mandatory sex offender classifications in Ohio law as applied to a 21-year-old who had a consensual sexual relationship with a 15-year-old. In 2011 the court ruled in State v. Williams that the state’s registration scheme is...
- Ohio pardons provide “only forgiveness, not forgetfulness” (1/29/2015) - On January 28, 2015, the Ohio Supreme Court settled an issue it has toyed with for several years, relating to the inherent power of courts to seal criminal records. In State v. Radcliff, a closely divided court held that judicial power to seal a conviction record, including the record of a conviction that has been pardoned, is limited by law. In Ohio, there is no statutory basis for sealing a pardoned conviction as there is in many (though not most) states. The majority evidently found this conclusion an unhappy one, lamenting that “until the General Assembly acts, we are left with...