Tag: Ohio

Ohio certificates remove mandatory bars to jobs and licenses

February 2, 2013 was an historic day in Ohio. The Ohio legislature added a new judicial restoration mechanism: the Certificate of Qualification for Employment (CQE). The CQE, contained in Ohio Rev. Code §2953.25, provides new hope to the 1 in 6 Ohioans who have a criminal conviction and as a result are ineligible for certain jobs and licenses because of a mandatory collateral sanction (of which there are many in Ohio law).  To date 242 Ohioans have received a CQE, and more are expected to apply when word gets around that this relief is available. The legal effect of a CQE is to lift mandatory collateral consequences that operate as a bar to employment or professional licensing under Ohio law:  [A CEQ] lifts the automatic bar of a collateral sanction, and a decision-maker may consider on a case-by-case basis whether to grant or deny the issuance or restoration of an occupational license or an employment opportunity, notwithstanding the individual’s possession of the certificate. Any Ohio resident with a conviction under Ohio law may apply for the CQE one year after completing their sentence for a felony, or after six months for a misdemeanor.  Those who were subject to the supervision of the state correctional system must submit an online application to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC). If the petition passes the DRC review – for completeness only — the applicant then files it in the Ohio common pleas court in the county of his or her residence. One shortcoming in the bill is that Ohio residents with out-of-state or federal convictions are ineligible to apply for a certificate, though they are exposed to the same collateral sanctions, nor are people with Ohio convictions who don’t reside in the state. See § 2953.25(A)(6)(defining “offense” as “any felony or misdemeanor under the laws of this state”) and § 2953.25(B)(5) (petition shall be filed in “the court of common pleas of the county in which the individual resides,” and court shall notify “the prosecuting attorney of the county in which the individual resides that the individual has filed the petition”).  We hope this shortcoming will be fixed in the coming legislative session.  (We note that Ohio’s sealing statutes somewhat anomalously apply to out-of-state and federal convictions. Like most judicial restoration statutes, the CQE statute requires the court to make certain findings of fact after a thorough background investigation.  The standard for issuing a certificate is whether the individual has established by a preponderance of the evidence that (a) granting the petition will materially assist in obtaining employment or occupational licensing; (b) the individual has a substantial need for the relief in order to live a law-abiding life; and (c) granting the petition would not pose an unreasonable risk to the safety of the public or any individual.   Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2953.25(C)(3).  The certificate is “presumptively revoked” if the individual is convicted of or pleads guilty to a felony offense committed after issuance of the certificate.  § 2953.25(H). The court where the application is filed must notify the court where the conviction occurred that the applicant has filed a request for a CQE, and must also notify the prosecutor and the victims and seek their views.  The application process is explained in greater detail here. Why would a CQE make an applicant more attractive to an employer?  There are two reasons:  first, the statute protects an employer from a negligent hiring claim if the CQE recipient, after being hired, demonstrates dangerousness or commits a felony.  Second, a CQE issued by the court may reassure the employer that the applicant has been fully investigated by a court.  Finally, a certificate may give the employer a measure of protection from bad publicity. The CQE remedy offers hope to so many Ohioans whose only available remedy to avoid mandatory employment-related penalties resulting from their conviction was a pardon. But it is not an easy process. The CQE applicant must complete a 16 page online application. It can be a daunting process for those applicants with limited education or even access to a computer. Enter the University of Akron School of Law and its Reentry Clinic. Started in March 2008, the Reentry Clinic offers assistance with judicial sealings and gubernatorial pardons. In June 2013, the clinic expanded its program to include helping clients with the CQE application process. Once a month, the law school holds a free clinic for individuals interested in applying for a CQE.  Staffed by volunteer law students, the CQE clinic assists applicants with completing and submitting the online application. It also offers follow-up assistance to those attendees who need help printing and filing their applications. Since the first CQE clinic in June 2013, over 1000 clients have come to the clinic. Volunteers have completed 391 CQE applications, and many of these have received CQEs. The law school is expanding its CQE clinic other parts of Ohio, thanks to a grant from the Ohio State Bar Foundation, and will replicate the Akron model in Cleveland, Youngstown, Toledo and Columbus. It will collaborate with Towards Employment, the Youngstown mayor’s office, the University of Toledo Law School and Capital University Law School to hold the clinics in each city. The grant also provides funding to educate Ohio employers about the benefits of the CQE, and funds a survey of CQE recipients to gauge the success of the CQE. The law school has already begun the survey, and reports from a small sample of CQE applicants are positive. Half of those surveyed reported that the CQE had assisted them with either getting a job or improving their position with their current employer. Stay tuned for more reports from Ohio on this exciting new remedy. For more information about the CQE clinic, you may visit the clinic website, or contact Professor Joann Sahl, jsahl1@uakron.edu.     Read more

Michigan takes baby steps on criminal justice reform

Michigan spends one in five tax dollars on corrections so the state continues to explore strategies to safely reduce these costs.  In its most recent session, the legislature considered bold criminal justice reforms, but strenuous last minute objections from the Attorney General succeeded in halting much of the reform agenda. In the end, only a few reforms were implemented and most of them were passed in watered-down form. The new laws include (1) the establishment of a Criminal Justice Policy Commission; (2) narrow expansion of set-aside eligibility to victims of human trafficking; and (3) authorization for Certificates of Employability for prisoners who complete certain in-prison training programs.  A more ambitious (though still narrow) expansion of the set-aside law is currently on the Governor’s desk for signature.  These “baby steps” leave lots of room for improvement, but constitute a blueprint for future reform efforts. Sentencing reforms – why reform was suggested and what was actually achieved In 2013, led by consultants from the Council of State Governments, Michigan undertook an in-depth study of its sentencing system for its impact on public safety, recidivism, and state and local spending. The study included analysis of 7.5 million data records, and over 300 in-person meetings and calls with stakeholders, such as law enforcement officials and legislators. The study concluded that (1) people throughout Michigan with similar criminal histories and convictions get significantly different sentences; (2) the time a person will actually serve in prison or under supervision cannot be predicted; (3) resources are not prioritized to reduce recidivism; (4) high rates of recidivism generate unnecessary costs and public safety risks, and current funding does not adequately fund reentry programs; and (5) there is no effective mechanism to track sentencing outcomes. Reformers responded.  Leading the charge was Representative Joseph Haveman, a Republican representing one of the most conservative districts in the state. His proposals would have reduced the discretion of judges and the parole board, created consistency in sentencing and supervision, allowed certain offenders to leave prison on parole earlier, decreased probation time, and established swift and predictable sanctions for probation violations. Opposition came from those who wanted to keep the current level of judicial and parole board discretion, and from sheriffs who worried about higher costs to local jails. The strongest opposition came from Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, who sent letters to lawmakers urging them to reject the bills, claiming that they were being rushed through Michigan’s “lame duck” session.  In the end, the House “gutted” the bills and they died in the Senate. One residual part of Haveman’s package, however, soared through both chambers:  a Criminal Justice Policy Commission was established to review the effectiveness of sentencing guidelines, release and supervision policies, and the use of prisons and jails. Expansion of set-aside authority A set-aside, frequently called “expungement,” makes criminal records unavailable to anyone other than courts, law enforcement agencies, and certain agencies.  Until recently, persons were eligible for set-aside under Michigan law only if they had fewer than two prior “minor offenses,” a term that was very narrowly defined.  See Mich. Comp. Laws 780.621.   Amendments to this provision signed into law by the governor on January 12, 2014, enlarge the category of priors a person may and still remain eligible for set-aside, from “minor offenses” to “misdemeanors.”  (A traffic offense would not constitute a misdemeanor, unless it had been for operating while intoxicated).  In addition, a person convicted of not more than two misdemeanors and no felonies may apply to have either or both of the misdemeanor convictions set aside.  As a result of amendments to 780.621 enacted in the fall of 2014, victims of human trafficking are now permitted to apply to set aside a conviction committed as a result of the trafficking. This new legislation allows more people to apply for a set-aside, but does not go as far as Minnesota’s new law, which extends expungement to a broader range of offenses, requires data-mining companies to honor expungements, addresses victimization and housing evictions, and protects landlords and employers.   [NOTE:  Another law enlarging the basic set-aside authority was signed by the governor in early 2015.  Under this bill, which has been in the works for years, a person who is convicted of not more than one felony offense and not more than two misdemeanors offenses may petition the court to set aside the felony offense.] Certificates of Employability Lastly, a bill authorizing a Certificate of Employability for certain persons currently serving a prison term in Michigan’s Department of Corrections provides some protection against liability for hiring or renting to the holder of a Certificate.  Under PA 360 of 2014, an employer or other person may introduce a Certificate as evidence of due care in hiring, retaining, licensing, leasing to, admitting to a school or program, or otherwise transacting business or engaging in activity with someone who has the Certificate, if the employer knew of the Certificate when hiring or otherwise engaging with its holder.  Like other states with similar employer protections–such as Ohio,[2] Tennessee,[3] and North Carolina,[4] and New York[5] — the Michigan law protects anyone who knows about the Certificate. However, in contrast with those states, most Michigan citizens with a criminal record are not eligible for a Certificate.[6]  The Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which opposes a ban-the-box proposal for job applications, supported the Certificate legislation. The Michigan Department of Corrections is authorized to issue Certificates only to incarcerated people no more than 30 days before release, and only if all of the following apply: (a) The prisoner successfully completed a career and technical education course; (b) The prisoner received no major misconducts during the two years preceding his or her release; (c) The prisoner received no more than three minor misconducts during the two years preceding his or her release; and (d) The prisoner received a “silver level” or better on his or her national work-readiness certificate, or a similar score as determined by the Department on an alternative job skills assessment test administered by the Department.  The Certificate is only valid for 4 years after issuance. Because nearly 80% of Michigan felony offenders since 1999 have been sentenced to community-based sanctions, the vast majority of Michiganders with a felony record will not be eligible for a Certificate. Also ineligible are those who are no longer incarcerated, so that the 163,861 people who have moved from the Department of Corrections to parole since 2000 will be unable to qualify, and neither will people with federal convictions or convictions from other jurisdictions. Finally, people currently at MDOC will be eligible only if they have access to education and training programs, which vary by facility throughout the state. Still, to those who are currently incarcerated by the Department of Corrections, receive education, get training, and are awarded a work-readiness certificate, the Employability Certificate may be helpful – if only for 4 years. Heather Garretson is a Scholar in Residence at City University of New York Law School, the premier public interest law school in the country.  She is a former federal prosecutor, defense attorney, and Professor of Law at Western Michigan University Cooley Law School in Grand Rapids, Michigan. [1] House Bill 5025, MCL 780.621,amended [2] Ohio Rev. Code Ann § 2953.25(G). [3] Tenn. Code Ann § 40-29-107(n)(1). [4] N.C. Gen. Stat. § 15A-173.5 [5] N.Y. Exec. Law § 296(15) [6] Iowa and Ohio have certificates that are similarly limited to prisoners, but neither of them include protections against negligent hiring. See Iowa Code § 906.19(2), Ohio Rev. Code Ann. §§ 2961.21.     Read more

State courts question mandatory lifetime sex offender registration

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 to invalidate mandatory registration requirements imposed on juveniles, but several state supreme courts have limited the retroactive application of registration requirements to adults under an ex post facto analysis. Juvenile registration requirements On December 29, 2014 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the state Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) violates juvenile offenders’ due process rights through the use of an irrebuttable presumption of recidivism.  See In the Interest of J.B., 2014 Pa. LEXIS 3468 (Pa. 2014).  The court noted that “the common view of registered sexual offenders is that they are particularly dangerous,”  and that consequently registration “negatively affects juvenile offenders ability to obtain housing, schooling, and employment, which in turn hinders their ability to rehabilitate.”  Citing research demonstrating the difference between juvenile and adult offenders, notably where sex offenses are involved (“many acts of delinquency involve immaturity, impulsivity, and sexual curiosity rather than hardened criminality”), the court held that “individualized risk assessment, as used in other provisions of SORNA, provides a reasonable alternative means of determining which juvenile offenders pose a high risk of recidivating” so as to warrant their registration. Given that juvenile offenders have a protected right to reputation encroached by SORNA’s presumption of recidivism, where the presumption is not universally true, and where there is a reasonable alternative means for ascertaining the likelihood of recidivating, we hold that the application of SORNA’s current lifetime registration requirements upon adjudication of specified offenses violates juvenile offenders’ due process rights by utilizing an irrebutable presumption. The Pennsylvania court joined the Ohio Supreme Court in invalidating lifetime sex offender registration requirements imposed on juveniles.  In re C.P., 967 N.E.2d 729 (Ohio, 2012) (invalidating on state and federal cruel and unusual punishment and procedural due process grounds automatic, lifetime registration imposed on juvenile tried in juvenile system). Meanwhile, federal courts have persisted in upholding categorical registration requirements imposed on juveniles under the Adam Walsh Act.  See U.S. v. Juvenile Male, 670 F.3d 999 (9th Cir. 2012), cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 234 (2012) (rejecting equal protection, cruel and unusual punishment, procedural and substantive due process challenges against automatic, lifetime registration). On the general issue of juveniles being subject to registration and notification requirements, see Amy E. Halbrook, Juvenile Pariahs, 65 Hastings L.J. 1 (2013); Human Rights Watch, Raised on the Registry: The Irreparable Harm of Placing Children on Sex Offender Registries in the US, available at . http://www.hrw.org/reports/2013/05/01/raised-registry; Stephanie Forbes, Comment, Sex, Cells, and SORNA: Applying Sex Offender Registration Laws to Sexting Cases, 52 Wm. & L. Rev. 1717 (2011).  Adult registration requirements Adults have also caught a few breaks in state court from increasingly harsh registration and notification requirements.  In 2011, the Ohio Supreme Court granted a challenge to the state’s amended registration law under the state’s constitutional ban on non-remedial retroactive laws, finding that “all doubt has been removed” as to whether the state’s law is punitive in character. State v. Williams, 952 N.E.2d 1108 (Ohio 2011). Earlier, the Indiana Supreme Court held that the increasingly onerous features of Indiana’s law, including in-home visits by police and the requirement that registrants carry a personal identification card at all times, violated the state constitution’s ex post facto provision. Wallace v. State, 905 N.E.2d 371 (Ind. 2009).  See also State v. Letalien, 985 A. 2d 4 (Me. 2009)(more burdensome later-enacted registration requirement violated ex post facto); Doe v. Sex Offender Registry, 882 N.E. 2d 298 (Mass. 2008)(due process violation in failure to give man subjected to new registration requirement opportunity to show that he posed no risk).  For recent examples of state court invalidation of registration requirements under state ex post facto provisions, see Doe v. Dep’t of Pub. Safety & Corr. Servs., 40 A.3d 39 (Md. 2013); Starkey v. Okla. Dep’t of Corr., 305 P.3d 1994 (Okla. 2013).* As in situations involving juveniles, federal courts have persisted in finding that registration requirements fail to qualify as constitutional punishment, even in their augmented post-Adam Walsh Act form.  See, e.g., U.S. v. W.B.H., 664 F.3d 848 (11th Cir. 2011), cert. denied, 133 S. Ct. 524 (2012).  The state/federal duality is exemplified by the Alaska Supreme Court’s 2008 decision disagreeing with the Smith majority’s opinion that Alaska’s registration law was not punitive. See Doe v. State, 189 P.3d 999 (Alaska 2008). For a discussion of constitutional challenges to sex offender registration and notification requirements, and other sex offense-related residency and associational restrictions, see Chapters 2 and 3 of Love, Roberts & Klingele, Collateral Consequences of Criminal Conviction: Law, Policy & Practice (2013).  Wayne Logan will shortly be posting his new article on relief from registration requirements, discussed in an earlier post here. *NOTE:  See also Doe v. New Hampshire, ___ N.H. ___ , No. 2013-496 (2015)(lifetime-registration-without-review provision of state law, pursuant to which petitioner was denied public housing, made requirement punitive for ex post facto purposes; the requirement could be enforced against petitioner only if he was promptly given an opportunity for either a court hearing, or an administrative hearing subject to judicial review, at which he was permitted to demonstrate that he no longer posed a risk sufficient to justify continued registration.)   Read more

Ohio’s on-line inventory of collateral consequences – a useful tool for defense lawyers

Kelley Williams-Bolar was a single mother in Akron Ohio, a teacher’s aide who was studying to become a teacher herself.  Her story made headlines in 2011, when she was accused of misusing her father’s home address to enroll her two young daughters in a public school they were not entitled to attend.  After her own home was burglarized, Kelley had enrolled the girls in their grandfather’s school district, so they could spend each afternoon after school safely at their grandfather’s house.  To make this possible she had signed a “grandparent affidavit” saying that the girls lived with their grandfather.  The new school district ultimately rejected the affidavit, and she withdrew the girls from their new school at the end of the school year. Ohio’s “grandparent affidavit” form contains a printed warning, advising that anyone who submits a false affidavit can be charged with “Falsification, a first degree misdemeanor.”  But that warning gave no hint of what would actually happen to Kelley.  Eighteen months after her daughters left the new school, the district attorney charged Kelley with felony Grand Theft, claiming she had “stolen” tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of tuition for her children. Particularly given Kelley’s career aspiration to be a teacher, her defense lawyer could have made good use of a new online resource called CIVICC (Civil Impacts of Criminal Convictions), a computerized compendium of state collateral consequences linked to the crimes that trigger them.  (Kelley’s felony conviction was eventually reduced to a misdemeanor by Governor John Kasich, high level intervention that cannot be counted on to substitute for effective advocacy.) At the CIVICC website, counsel in a case like Kelley’s could run a quick search using the keyword “theft,” and learn right away that conviction on the Grand Theft charge would expose her to 509 possible collateral consequences (“civil impacts”) under Ohio law, burdens she would bear long after her criminal sentence was complete. Those consequences could include denial of a teaching license and ineligibility for employment in a school.   Even if she received a comparatively light sentence for the offense, the simple fact of conviction would likely destroy Kelley’s hopes of becoming a teacher.  CIVICC would also show the same consequences flowing from any conviction for felony Tampering with Records, the conviction that Kelley ultimately received. In contrast, counsel would learn that a conviction for Falsification — the misdemeanor offense specifically identified on the grandparent affidavit form — would trigger “only” 192 collateral consequences, and the worst threat to Kelley’s teaching ambitions would be the right of licensing officials to question her about her criminal record.  The stark contrast between these long-term outcomes would provoke at minimum a serious attorney-client discussion about priorities.   The knowledge could significantly influence defense strategy and perhaps lead to a better outcome — not only for Kelley but for the state as well, as research has shown that secure employment offers by far the best assurance that an ex-offender will go on to live a law-abiding life. The CIVICC database is an ongoing project of the Ohio Justice & Policy Center in partnership with the Ohio Public Defender’s office.  The project began in 2010 to address a constellation of related circumstances that Ohio shares with other states across the country:  The explosion of criminal convictions in recent decades has produced a statewide population where 1 in 6 Ohioans has a felony or misdemeanor conviction record. Collateral consequences have proliferated correspondingly: CIVICC presently contains 844 and counting, nearly all enacted in the last 40 years. 95% of convictions are the result of guilty pleas, entered by defendants who have been informed of the potential criminal penalties but have no clue of the long-term collateral consequences they will confront when the sentence is complete. The cumulative economic effects of mass incarceration and lifelong collateral consequences have finally begun to capture attention from policymakers across the political spectrum. The collateral consequences in Ohio law are scattered throughout the statutory and administrative codes with no discernible order or system.  Anyone searching the codes for the collateral consequences of a particular conviction — whether a defense lawyer, a returning citizen, a workforce development professional or a social service volunteer — will spend hours if not days winding through the labyrinth of potentially applicable laws and rules. In response to these multiple concerns, CIVICC was created to collect in one searchable online database all the collateral consequences of conviction that exist in Ohio statutes.  More than that, its “relational database” structure enables users to see which collateral consequences are linked to which offenses under Ohio law.  Starting with an “Offense search,” the user can look up a particular criminal offense or type of offense, and find out what civil penalties that offense will trigger in addition to the court-imposed sentence.  Starting with an “Impact search,” the user can look up a particular right, privilege or field of endeavor, and find out what types of criminal conviction might block access to it. The CIVICC database first went online experimentally in March 2011, with information about 56 “civil impacts” of conviction.  It now contains 844 consequences, of which more than 300 have been newly enacted and/or amended since March, 2011.  CIVICC’s design and features have similarly evolved to meet the practical needs of its widely varied users. Certain essential characteristics do not change, however.  Among them are the following: CIVICC provides a narrative description of each consequence, which is searchable in an “Impact Keyword” query.  Many descriptions include citations to the multiple statutes and regulations that must be read together in order to understand a single consequence. CIVICC’s searchable content identifies the type of case outcome required to trigger each consequence. This is particularly valuable in Ohio, whose collateral consequence statutes vary enormously in their reach.  Some collateral consequences can be triggered by an arrest or indictment, some by participation in a diversion program, and some by an offense that has been officially “sealed” or “expunged.”  Juvenile defenders value the ability to use the Impact keyword “juvenile” and find the consequences that can be triggered specifically by a juvenile adjudication. CIVICC search results provide a link to the full text each offense statute and each consequence statute, plus additional links to certain exceptions found in Ohio statutes and regulations.  This is possible because Ohio provides online public access to the official text of its statutes and regulations via Lawriter. CIVICC is designed to be easy to use, but each page has a link to the User Guide/FAQs which can also be downloaded for offline use. OJPC first envisioned CIVICC as a one-year project but after almost five years it is still under construction, continually expanding with both new and updated content even as it handles over one thousand public queries each month.  While CIVICC users are anonymous, system reports show that queries come from community organizations, employers, courts, government agencies, public library users, public defenders, treatment providers, law firms and academic institutions, both within and outside Ohio.  Such reports echo what OJPC has learned directly from the users themselves:  that CIVICC is being used in a wide range of settings for purposes that include: identifying a particular applicable collateral consequences, as required when applying for a Certificate of Achievement and Employability (“CAE”) or Certificate for Qualification for Employment (“CQE”) under recently enacted Ohio laws; finding the range of collateral consequences that may result from a particular kind of criminal case outcome; identifying all the collateral consequences related to a particular occupation or field of study; examining the scope and effects of particular legislative enactments; and evaluating and comparing the types of collateral consequences that affect various segments of the community. News and inquiries from CIVICC users feed OJPC’s determination make continual improvements in CIVICC’s scope and functionality.  Encouragement comes especially from OJPC’s current collaboration with community college faculty, administrators and students; and from our work with Ohio’s statewide Ex-Offender Reentry Coalition, which involves state agencies and community organizations in advancing social and economic success for individuals with criminal records and for their families and communities. OJPC provides training about CIVICC and collateral consequences to user groups of all sizes and stripes, and we welcome inquiries and insights from all sources.  The website’s Contact page provides conventional contact information plus a direct e-mail link for user questions.  Try CIVICC at http://CIVICCOhio.org, and let us know what you think!   Read more

More states rely on judicial expungement to avoid collateral consequences

Oklahoma is the most recent state to expand its expungement laws to make more people eligible for record-clearing at an earlier date.  While the specific changes adopted by the Oklahoma legislature are relatively modest, involving reduced waiting periods and fewer disqualifying priors, they are significant as part of a national trend toward enlarging this type of “forgetting” relief for people with minor criminal records.  Details of Oklahoma’s law are available here. Other states that have enacted new expungement laws or broadened existing ones in the past two years include Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, and Tennessee. Alabama’s new expungement law is the first record-closing law in that state and applies only to non-conviction records.  Arkansas and Minnesota broadened or consolidated existing expungement schemes that were already quite extensive.  The Indiana expungement scheme is entirely new and particularly comprehensive and progressive. (An analysis of the new law by its primary sponsor in the Indiana legislature will be posted in this space very soon.)  The effect of this type of “forgetting” relief varies widely from state to state, from complete destruction of records in states like Pennsylvania and Connecticut to more limited relief in Kansas and Indiana, where expunged records remain accessible to some employers as well as law enforcement. The other type of individualized judicial relief from collateral consequences that is growing in popularity relies not on limiting public access to a person’s criminal record, but instead on removing legal barriers and providing reassurances to employers and other decision-makers.  Judicial certificate programs have been enacted in the past year by Vermont and Rhode Island, following similar programs enacted in 2012 in Ohio and North Carolina. This more transparent “forgiving” relief tends to apply to a broader range of offenses than expungement, and may meet less resistance from law enforcement, business and the media than record-closing laws. Mainstream law reform organizations like the Uniform Law Commission and the American Law Institute have adopted the “forgiving” as opposed to the “forgetting” model of relief represented by expungement and sealing statutes.  Vermont is the first state to enact the Uniform Collateral Consequences of Conviction Act in its entirety, as described here.  The ALI’s approval of the Model Penal Code: Sentencing collateral consequences provisions is described here. A 50-state summary chart of judicial relief provisions, prepared for the NACDL Restoration of Rights Project, is available here.  The Wall Street Journal will publish a national study of expungement laws sometime in the next few weeks. Read more