Tag: East Bay Community Law Center

David Schlussel joins CCRC as its first Fellow

I am delighted to announce that David Schlussel will join CCRC as its first Fellow at the end of this month.  Most recently, David served as a law clerk for the Honorable David O. Carter on the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. While attending law school at Berkeley, David represented clients in juvenile delinquency, school discipline, and clean slate proceedings as a clinical student for the East Bay Community Law Center. He also interned at public defender offices, taught outreach courses in Juvenile Hall, and wrote a law review note on marijuana, race, and collateral consequences. David has been interested in inequities in the criminal justice system since college, when he volunteered as a GED tutor at the New Haven jail.

During his fellowship year, David will be maintaining CCRC resources, including the Restoration of Rights Project; reporting on new laws and developments in the courts; and drafting analytical pieces on significant scholarship and research relating to collateral consequences.  One of his first assignments will be preparing a round-up of the “second chance” legislation enacted during 2018 – to date, more than 50 separate laws in thirty-two states.  During his tenure, David hopes to participate in drafting an amicus brief, an opportunity that could come very soon with a major new challenge to Pennsylvania’s sex offender registration scheme pending in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
David’s piece on California’s new occupational licensing law that will post later today on the site is the first of what I expect will be many of his thought-provoking analyses of significant new “second chance” legislation.

Should a criminal record ruin a career?

logoThe Atlantic has published an excellent article about the permanently disabling effects of a criminal record, by two attorneys at the East Bay Community Law Center (Oakland, CA), Sarah Crowley and Alex Bender (an Equal Justice Works AmeriCorps Fellow).  Haunted by the Past: A Criminal Record Shouldn’t Ruin a Career, March 25, 2015.  The authors argue, based on their experiences in their practice, that “too many applicants, particularly people of color, are being denied jobs based on background checks that are irrelevant or even inaccurate.”   They describe the sources of inaccuracy and other unreliability in criminal background checks, even ones based on fingerprinting.  But then they focus on the real problem, which is that over-reliance on background checks “inevitably screens out qualified, trustworthy job applicants.”

They tell the story of one woman whose dated misdemeanor convictions deprived a California group home of a valuable employee:  Read more

Clean slate remedies help overcome collateral consequences

Eliza Hersh, director of the Clean Slate Clinic at the East Bay Community Law Center and one of CCRC’s contributing authors, has co-authored a most persuasive op ed in the LA Times, which we are pleased to reprint here in full.  

Should a shoplifting conviction be an indelible 1016829040562382727EwjStKwcscarlet letter? Not in California

What exactly is the appropriate punishment for someone who commits a low-level, nonviolent crime? Should a conviction for minor drug possession, shoplifting or writing a bad check result in a lifetime of stigma and denied opportunities, or do people with criminal records deserve a second chance?

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