Category: Uncategorized

SCOTUS to review two collateral consequences cases

Most of the public interest in the Supreme Court’s cert grants on Friday focused on the transgender bathroom case from Virginia. But the Court also granted cert in two cases involving collateral consequences: one a First Amendment challenge to a North Carolina law barring a registered sex offender from internet access; and the other whether a man convicted in California of having consensual sex with his underage girlfriend committed an “aggravated felony” subjecting him to deportation. Here are the SCOTUSblog descriptions of the two cases: Among the court’s other grants today, Packingham v. North Carolina is the case of Lester Packingham, a North Carolina man who became a registered sex offender after he was convicted, at the age of 21, of taking indecent liberties with a minor. Six years after Packingham’s conviction, North Carolina enacted a law that made it a felony for registered sex offenders to access a variety of websites, from Facebook to The New York Times and YouTube. Packingham was convicted of violating this law after a police officer saw a Facebook post in which Packingham celebrated, and gave thanks to God for, the dismissal of a traffic ticket. The justices today agreed to review Packingham’s contention […]

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Sex offender passport law survives challenge

A federal judge in San Francisco has dismissed a constitutional challenge to the recently enacted International Megan’s Law, which requires specially-marked passports for registered sex offenders whose offenses involved child victims, and authorizes notification to foreign governments when they travel.  The so-called “Scarlet Letter” law is specifically aimed at stopping child sex trafficking and sex tourism, and this purpose was evidently enough to justify it even though it has a far broader effect.

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Collateral consequences a legacy of slavery

The debased legal and social status that results from criminal conviction is visited disproportionately on African-Americans.  Collateral consequences are the vehicle by which this country now imposes a permanent servitude on the descendants of those who were once literally owned by other human beings.  Mass conviction no less than mass incarceration is a legacy of slavery.  So we think it appropriate to commend to our readers Bryan Stevenson’s extraordinary interview for The Marshall Project in the wake of last week’s terrorist attack in Charleston.  It is incumbent on all of us to consider how the scheme of collateral penalties imposed by the criminal justice system is calculated to keep millions of Americans disenfranchised and impoverished, and to dedicate ourselves to dismantling it.

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Hip-hop mogul’s arrest highlights liquor license consequences

  The June 22 arrest of  Sean “Diddy” Combs on three counts of assault with a deadly weapon has spotlighted the severe consequences of conviction for liquor licensees.  An article in The Observer reports that, if convicted, the legendary hip-hop artist may be forced to divest his holdings in Diageo, the world’s largest producer of spirits.   In almost every U.S. jurisdiction, principals in the manufacture or sale of alcohol are required to hold licenses that are generally not available to people who have a felony conviction. While Combs has had a number of high-profile brushes with the law, he’s never been convicted of a felony.

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Why we need a federal expungement law

This article originally appeared at TalkPoverty.org under the title “New Ruling Highlights Why We Need the REDEEM Act”  On May 21, U.S. District Judge John Gleeson ordered the expungement of the 13-year-old federal fraud conviction of “Jane Doe,” a Brooklyn home health aide. His decision received national attention for being unprecedented in the federal courts, which have no explicit authority conferred on them by Congress to expunge or seal federal criminal cases. Encouraging though it is, Judge Gleeson’s decision is most important for its illustration of the need for Congress to enact such a sealing remedy, as provided for in the bipartisan REDEEM Act (S. 675).

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