Tag: Florida

Loss and restoration of voting and firearms rights after conviction: A national survey

*Update (9/8/20): the full national report, “The Many Roads to Reintegration,” is now available.

Earlier today we announced the forthcoming publication of a national report on mechanisms for restoring rights and opportunities following arrest or conviction, titled “The Many Roads to Reintegration.”  As promised, here is the first chapter of that report on loss and restoration of voting and firearms rights, a subject that needs little or no introduction.  The research, drawn from the Restoration of Rights Project, reveals a trend since 2015 toward expanding opportunities to regain the vote that has accelerated just in the past two years.

This trend seems particularly timely in light of the pending constitutional challenge to Florida’s restoration system, which raises the question whether the state may constitutionally require people to pay outstanding legal financial obligations (LFOs) before being allowed to vote, even if they cannot afford to do so.  There are now only two states in addition to Florida in which the vote is permanently lost for those unable to pay all LFOs associated with a disqualifying conviction.  An additional seven states permanently deny the vote for those unable to pay certain types of LFOs.  (Early next week, we will publish a report surveying state laws and practices on this issue, which will be included in abbreviated form in an amicus brief we plan to file in the court of appeals in support of the Florida plaintiffs.)

In contrast to voting rights law, there has been almost no change in the past half dozen years in how state and federal law treats firearms restoration after conviction.  In most states, firearms dispossession remains indefinite for anyone convicted of a felony, and restoration depends upon petitioning a court for discretionary relief or asking for a pardon. In 11 of the 26 states in which all firearms rights are permanently lost upon conviction of any felony, and for those with a federal conviction, a pardon is the exclusive restoration mechanism.

A PDF of this chapter is available here.  Coming next week, the report’s chapter on “Employment and Occupational Licensing.”

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CCRC statement on recent events

CCRC stands with those opposing police violence against black people and other forms of racism throughout society.  Black lives matter.

Our organization promotes public discussion of how criminal records are used to hold people back in civil society.  Discrimination based on a record hits the black community harder than any other, thanks to the long history of officials using the criminal law as a weapon to keep black people marginalized and subjugated.

Most recently, we have documented the Small Business Administration’s decisions to exclude many people from COVID-19 relief due to arrest or conviction, which disproportionately harms minority business owners during an already precarious moment.  We have also covered felony disenfranchisement litigation in Florida, where a federal judge held unconstitutional the denial of voting rights to people who have served their time but still owe restitution and fines they cannot afford to pay.

In this time of national turmoil, many protesters have been and will continued to be arrested. Most will be released without charges, some will be charged, and some will be convicted.  But every single one of them will end up with a criminal record.

Very few states make it easy to avoid the stigma that even a bare arrest record produces, even when it is not accompanied or followed by any charges.  Our flagship resource, the Restoration of Rights Project, documents that even those protesters who are released without charges will need to petition a court or agency to seal or expunge the record of their arrest in order to avoid a lifelong record that can create barriers in housing, employment, and education.  In some states, courts or agencies have discretion to deny relief even where the government found no basis to prosecute.

Our Model Law on Non-Conviction Records (2019) recommends that states automatically expunge arrest records that do not result in charges or conviction, as well as charges that do not result in conviction, and that they do it promptly.  While 15 states do provide for automatic or expedited relief following a non-conviction disposition in court, 35 do not.  And, only a handful of states automatically expunge arrests where no charges are filed.  The filing of expungement petitions, costly and cumbersome in normal times, will be especially difficult due to limited access to courts during COVID-19.

It is especially wrong to saddle people who have never even been charged with a lifelong record.  This should be one of the first changes in the criminal law to work for in coming months, and it should be an easy one to accomplish.

For people who are convicted, 38 states have laws that allow at least some misdemeanors to be expunged or sealed; 31 of these states also make certain felonies eligible.  Waiting periods, filing fees, and other requirements apply.  In recent years, 7 states have enacted automatic relief for certain misdemeanors, dispensing with the petition requirement for those who qualify.  But there is no authority to expunge or seal federal records, including records of uncharged arrests; and, the laws on record sealing in the District of Columbia are some of the most restrictive in the country.

In two forthcoming posts, we will survey the laws pertaining to non-conviction and conviction record relief across the country.  At least with respect to non-conviction records, a menu of recommended reforms is already readily available in our Model Law.

Federal judge certifies class for landmark Florida felony voting trial

The monumental felony voting rights case in Florida moves another step forward, expanding in scope.  On Tuesday, the federal trial judge overseeing the case certified a class of all persons who have served sentences for felony convictions, who would be eligible to vote in Florida but for unpaid court debt.  With the trial scheduled to begin via remote communication on April 27, the decision enables the court to issue a ruling on the merits in time for the November election that would apply to the entire class of several hundred thousand (or more) potential Florida voters.

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11th Circuit upholds voting rights for Floridians unable to pay fines and fees

*Update (3/31/20): the Eleventh Circuit has denied Florida’s petition for rehearing en banc.

A decision yesterday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit is a major victory for voting rights and criminal justice reform advocates.  It has the potential to dramatically expand access to the ballot for people with felony convictions in Florida.  The decision concerns Florida’s 2018 ballot initiative Amendment 4, which restored the vote to state residents who have completed the terms of their sentence, which includes fines, fees, and restitution imposed by the court.  The appeals court’s decision held that Florida may not deny the vote to individuals who can demonstrate that they are genuinely unable to pay outstanding court debt.  The decision also called into question the very requirement that financial penalties must be satisfied in order to regain the vote under Amendment 4, and potentially similar requirements in several other states.

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New 2019 laws restore voting rights in 11 states

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

  1. Voting 

In 2019, eleven states took steps to restore the right to vote and to expand awareness of voting eligibility.  Our experience is that many people convicted of a felony believe they are disqualified from voting when they are not:  almost every state restores voting rights automatically to most convicted individuals at some point, if they are even disenfranchised to begin with.

The most significant new re-enfranchisement laws were enacted in Colorado, Nevada and New Jersey, where convicted individuals are now eligible to vote except when actually incarcerated.  Colorado restored the vote to persons on parole supervision, while Nevada revised its complex system for restoring civil rights so that all people with felony convictions may now vote except while in prison.  In one of the final legislative acts of 2019, New Jersey’s governor signed a law limiting disenfranchisement to a period of actual incarceration, even in cases where a court has ordered loss of the vote for election law violations, immediately restoring the vote to 80,000 people.  These three states joined the two states (New York and Louisiana) that in 2018 took steps to limit disenfranchisement to a period of incarceration:  New York’s governor issued the first of a series of executive orders under his pardon power restoring the vote to individuals on parole, and Louisiana passed a law allowing people to register if they have been out of prison for at least five years.

Now, only three of the 19 states that disenfranchise only those sentenced to prison still extend ineligibility through completion of parole:  California, Connecticut, and Idaho.  Bills under consideration in 2019 in both California and Connecticut would allow people to vote once they leave prison, though in California this will require a constitutional amendment.

Kentucky saw perhaps the most dramatic extension of the franchise in 2019, when its incoming governor Andy Beshear issued an executive order restoring the vote and eligibility for office to an estimated 140,000 individuals convicted of non-violent felonies who had completed their sentences.  Before the order, individuals were required to petition the governor individually to obtain restoration of their voting rights.  (Governor Beshear’s father had issued a similar order in 2015 at the end of his own term as governor, but it was revoked by his successor.)  Iowa is now the only state that does not restore the vote automatically to most convicted individuals at some point.

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