Expanded Forgiveness of a Criminal Conviction

Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to participate in a national roundtable, sponsored by the American Law Institute and National Conference of State Legislatures, on current and possible approaches to relieving the consequences of a criminal conviction. We considered three basic approaches: “forgetting” convictions by expunging them or limiting access to information about them; “forgiving” convictions through, among other things, certificates of relief, also known as certificates of rehabilitation; and “forgoing” convictions by diverting matters before conviction or decriminalizing them altogether. In its recently-completed legislative session, the North Carolina General Assembly expanded the forgiveness approach by making it easier to get a certificate of relief. Read on for more about this relatively new relief mechanism. If you’re interested in approaches elsewhere, the papers submitted by the various scholars and practitioners invited to the roundtable were recently published in the Federal Sentencing Reporter, available here. You can read my paper about North Carolina here. Effect of a certificate of relief. In 2011, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted its first certificate of relief law. A major effect of a certificate of relief is that it converts mandatory collateral consequences into discretionary ones. See G.S. 15A-173.2. Although the conviction is not expunged, this relief can be significant. For example, some statutes provide for automatic revocation of a person’s occupational license. See, e.g., G.S. 58-71-80 (revocation of bail bond license mandatory for felony conviction at any time and misdemeanor drug conviction in previous 24 months). If the person has obtained a certificate of [...]