Category: News

Living with a marijuana conviction after legalization (updated)

Jacob Sullum, senior editor at Reason, has written a fabulous article about expungement of marijuana convictions in places that have since legalized marijuana: so far 10 states, DC, and the Northern Mariana Islands have legalized.  The piece is now available to the public at this link: http://reason.com/archives/2019/03/01/the-lingering-stench-of-mariju

Sullum tells the stories of eleven individuals, from the jurisdictions that have legalized, who describe how their marijuana convictions have impacted their lives before and after legalization.  He documents the lingering legal and social sanctions that burden people long after they have served their sentences, sanctions that “seem especially unjust and irrational in the growing number of U.S. jurisdictions that have legalized marijuana for recreational use.”

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CCRC’s top 10 posts and most popular tweets of 2018

Happy New Year!  Thank you so much for spending time with us this year on our tools, news, and commentary.  In 2018, visitors most frequently utilized the resources in our Restoration of Rights Project: a state-by-state and federal guide to pardons, sealing & expungement, loss & restoration of civil rights and firearms rights, and consideration of criminal records in employment and licensing.  In addition, links to our top 10 posts and most popular tweets from 2018 are below.

We have several projects in store for 2019 to expand our work of promoting public discussion of collateral consequences and restoration of rights and status.  To begin with, we will issue in January 2019 a report on the unprecedented number of new “fair chance” laws enacted in the past year: 29 states and the District of Columbia enacted more than 50 separate new laws, many addressing more than one type of restoration mechanism.  18 states expanded their laws authorizing sealing or expungement, Florida voters acted to restore the vote to more than 1.5 million individuals with felony convictions, and a bipartisan effort to reform how licensing agencies treat people with a criminal record bore fruit in a dozen states.  In addition, in early 2019 we also expect to begin a major research project to determine which kinds of restoration laws are most effective in furthering reintegration.

More to come soon! Read more

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.

Vermont AG supports opportunities for diversion and expungement

Vermont Business Magazine recently showcased the leadership shown by Vermont Attorney General TJ Donovan in criminal justice reform.  Most notably, he has streamlined the process for seeking expungement, and increased opportunities to avoid a record entirely through greater use of diversion for less serious offenses.  The importance of enabling people to avoid a criminal record altogether through these two mechanisms cannot be overstated.  Donovan also championed last year’s bail reforms that will ensure low-income individuals are not held in jail prior to trial simply because they are poor. The article is worth posting in full as an illustration of a new breed of prosecutor committed to reducing the ill effects of the “tough on crime” era on individuals and communities least able to overcome them.

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Florida’s vote restoration process held unconstitutional

In a strongly-worded opinion, a federal judge has ruled that Florida’s method of restoring voting rights to individuals convicted of felonies violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments.  In Hand v. Scott, a suit brought by seven individuals either denied restoration of rights by the State Clemency Board or ineligible to apply, U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker held that Florida’s “arbitrary” and “crushingly restrictive” restoration scheme, in which “elected, partisan officials have extraordinary authority to grant or withhold the right to vote from hundreds of thousands of people without any constraints, guidelines, or standards,” violates rights of free speech and association, and risks viewpoint and other discrimination.

As reported in this local press article, Governor Scott’s office issued a statement late Thursday, hinting at an appeal.  Scott was the principal architect of the current system that requires all applicants for clemency to wait at least five years after they complete their sentences, serve probation and pay all restitution, before they may be considered for restoration of the vote and other civil rights.  Throughout his 43-page ruling, Judge Walker cited the arbitrariness of Florida’s system, noting that people have been denied their voting rights because they received speeding tickets or failed to pay child support.

Scott and the Cabinet, meeting as a clemency board, consider cases four times a year, and usually fewer than 100 cases each time. It can take a decade or longer for a case to be heard, and at present the state has a backlog of more than 10,000 cases. Scott imposed the restrictions in 2011, soon after he was elected, with the support of three fellow Republicans who serve on the Cabinet, including Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, now a leading candidate for governor. Scott’s actions in 2011 reversed a policy under which many felons, not including murderers and sex offenders, had their rights restored without application process and hearings. That streamlined process was instituted in 2007 by former Gov. Charlie Crist, then a Republican and now a Democratic member of Congress.

The context in which the case was decided is described in this NPR article.  Last month, Florida elections officials approved a November ballot measure that would automatically restore voting rights to people convicted of felonies who have completed their sentences, with exceptions for murder and serious sex offenses.