Category: Relief

CCRC’s First Newsletter

Dear Subscribers,

We write with an update on our continued work to promote public discussion of restoration of rights and opportunities for people with a record. Highlights from this year’s work are summarized below, including roundups of new legislation, case studies on barriers to expungement, policy recommendations, and a new “fair chance lending” project to reduce criminal history barriers to government-supported loans to small businesses. We thank you for your interest and invite your comments as our work progresses. Read more

“The Future of the President’s Pardon Power”

A blue textured circle overlaps a red circle with white and red text overlay that reads The Future of the President's Pardon Power, 2021 Clemency Panel Series

The Collateral Consequences Resource Center is pleased to announce a series of online panels on successive Tuesdays in September, starting on September 14, that will explore in depth the use of the pardon power by President Donald Trump, and how it both reflects recent trends in pardoning and is likely to influence pardoning in the future.

The first panel, on September 14, will discuss Trump’s abandonment of the bureaucratic tradition in pardoning and what this reveals both about his concept of office and about the nature of the constitutional power.  The second panel, on September 21, will consider whether Trump’s pardons may prompt much-needed reforms in sentencing law and practice.  The third panel, on September 28, will consider possible changes in how the pardon power is administered resulting from its idiosyncratic use by President Trump, and whether the Justice Department should remain responsible for advising the president in pardon matters.

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Arizona enacts its very first sealing law – and it’s impressive!

In July 2021, in an unheralded action in the final days of its legislative session, Arizona enacted a law that authorized its courts for the first time to seal conviction records. See SB1294, enacting Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 13-911. The same law authorized sealing of uncharged arrests and dismissed and acquitted charges, also for the first time. Prior to this enactment, Arizona was one of a handful of states whose legislature had made no provision for limiting public access to conviction records, and was literally the only state in the country whose courts and records repository had no authority to seal non-conviction records. Now the state will have one of the broadest sealing laws in the country when it becomes effective on January 1, 2023.

(In the November 2020 election, Arizona voters approved a proposition to legalize marijuana, which included a provision for expungement of certain marijuana-related records.  But until now no general sealing authority had been enacted by the Arizona legislature.)

As described below, the law makes all but the most serious offenses eligible for sealing after completion of sentence (including payment of court debt) and a graduated waiting period.  It also appears that 1) multiple eligible convictions may be sealed, in a single proceeding or sequentially; 2) the prior conviction of a felony (even if ineligible) does not disqualify an eligible offense from relief but simply extends the applicable waiting period; 3) a conviction during the waiting period restarts the waiting period; and 4) there is no limit on the number of occasions on which sealing may be sought.

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Reintegration reform returns to pre-pandemic levels in first half of 2021

This year is proving to be a landmark one for legislation restoring rights and opportunities to people with a criminal record, extending the remarkable era of “reintegration reform” that began around 2013. Just in the past six months, 30 states and the District of Columbia have enacted an extraordinary 101 new laws to mitigate collateral consequences. Six more bills await a governor’s signature.  It appears that legislative momentum in support of facilitating reintegration has returned to the pre-pandemic pace of 2019.

Overall, the past 30 months have produced an astonishing total of 361 laws aimed at neutralizing the adverse effect of a criminal record, plus more than a dozen additional executive actions and ballot initiatives.

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Restoration of voting and other civil rights in 2021

Voting rights

In the first half of 2021, three states enacted laws authorizing automatic restoration of the vote to anyone not actually incarcerated for a felony, and a fourth state did so through executive order, while beginning the process of amending its constitution to accomplish this result.

New York and Connecticut repealed provisions disenfranchising anyone on parole, while Washington restored the vote to anyone no longer confined for a felony. In March 2021, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam issued an executive order restoring the vote to 69,000 people who had been released from prison but had not yet completed their supervision, culminating a process of automatic expansion of the franchise by gubernatorial executive order that began in 2013. The Virginia legislature approved a proposal to amend the state constitution that, if approved a second time by the next legislature and by a referendum, will disenfranchise only people who are sentenced to a prison term for a felony and will restore their right to vote upon release from prison.

Three other states clarified the timing of restoration of voting rights or facilitated their exercise. Louisiana clarified its law to ensure that a return to jail for violating parole will not extend the 5-year period after which a person released on parole may vote. Maryland passed a law to ensure that individuals detained in Baltimore’s jail may vote, and Illinois passed a law to facilitate registration by those exiting prison.

At the federal level, President Biden issued an Executive Order titled “Promoting Access to Voting” whose Section 9 (“Ensuring Access to Voter Registration for Eligible Individuals in Federal Custody”) requires the Attorney General to take four important actions to ensure access, for people in federal custody or under federal supervision, to voter registration and educational materials on restoration of voting rights.

Jury eligibility

Connecticut limited ineligibility for jury service to a period of actual incarceration, and Louisiana replaced its lifetime bar with a five-year period after release from prison or probation.

Office-holding 

Illinois recognized its governor’s authority to restore eligibility for municipal office to a person with a federal conviction, by granting a certificate of restoration of rights.

Firearms

Kansas expanded the effect of expungement to restore firearms rights.

More details on these laws are available in the Restoration of Rights Project.