Tag: expunction

North Carolina enacts Second Chance Act

CCRC Board member John Rubin of the University of North Carolina faculty has provided us with a detailed account of NC’s brand new Second Chance Act, and we are pleased to post it below.  We are particularly pleased to see North Carolina join the 13 other states that have enacted automatic record relief for dismissals and acquittals, and remove its prior felony bar to eligibility.  It appears that only a handful of states still retain this unfortunate provision, including Rhode Island, Oklahoma, and West Virginia.  We look forward to studying the new law in detail, and will shortly incorporate its…

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Canada stiffens policy on sealing of criminal records – but it still looks pretty liberal from here

A couple of news items about an increase in clemency applications in Canada made me curious to learn more about how restoration of rights works in our Northern neighbor. Canada has long had a policy of virtually automatic sealing of criminal records through what is known as a “record suspension” (before 2012, called a “pardon”).  The Criminal Records Act (CRA) makes record suspension available from the Parole Board of Canada for any offense except sex crimes involving children, and to any individual except those convicted of multiple serious crimes, after waiting periods of five years from completion of sentence for “summary” offenses and 10…

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North Carolina offers detailed on-line guide to relief from a criminal conviction

We’ve just learned that the School of Government at the University of North Carolina has produced a detailed and well-organized online guide to obtaining relief from a North Carolina criminal conviction. You can view the guide here.  The guide explains in one place the various mechanisms available in North Carolina for obtaining relief from collateral consequences, including expunctions, judicial certificates of relief, and other procedures. The guide supplements the School’s Collateral Consequences Assessment Tool, C-CAT, an online tool enabling users to identify the potential consequences of a criminal conviction in North Carolina.  C-CAT is user-friendly and has been kept up to…

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