Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Wednesday January 30, 2013





This morning Uniform Law Commissioner Rich Cassidy testified before the House Judiciary Committee on the Uniform Collateral Consequences of Conviction Act, a bill that has yet to be introduced. Rich chaired the ULC committee that drafted the act. This will be the second go round for the UCCCA, the first version of which failed to pass the Senate in the last session. His testimony was really just background for the committee to begin to understand the issue. There is an estimated 35,000 statutes across the country that may apply post conviction. There may be as many as 300 statutes that contain consequences of conviction in Vermont. He also said that some estimate that 100,000 Vermonters may have a conviction in their past.

So what would this bill do? It would require the collection and updating of the list of collateral consequences. It requires notice to a defendant of the concept of collateral consequences that may be out there. it regulates the effect of collateral consequences from state to state and it would provide limited relief from some consequences.

As we know some consequences of a conviction are automatic (collateral sanctions) while others are discretionary (disqualifications). As I understand it the bill would make all sanctions discretionary and provide states specific grounds to exercise that discretion.

Check out this website for the list of consequences in Vermont, one of twelve states to have been researched to date: http://www.abacollateralconsequences.org/

Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, we created a Bill Watch page on our website where you can find those bills that we are tracking. Here’s the link:


Book mark that page so you can return to either read a bill to check its current status.

Thanks for reading.

 

1 comment:

  1. Bob,
    Nice summary of a complicated subject. One caveat, the UCCCA would not always make all collateral consequences discretionary. In the event of ambiguity on the point, a collateral consequence would be required to construed as discretionary. And one effect of any certificate or order of relief granted under that statute would be to make automatic sanctions discretionary disqualifications and to guide the exercise of discretion by governmental officials.
    Thanks for posting about the bill!
    Rich

    ReplyDelete