ABA COMMISSION ON EFFECTIVE CRIMINAL SANCTIONS

ANNOUNCEMENTS

ABA Commission Testifies before Massachusetts Joint Judiciary Committee concerning CORI Reform and Reentry

Director Margaret Love testified before the Joint House and Senate Judiciary Committee on September 18, 2007 in Boston regarding CORI reform and offender reentry. She discussed the recommendations of the Commission concerning access to criminal records and other reentry issues, and highlighted the innovative approaches being developed around the country aimed at reducing recidivism and improving offender reentry. Commissioner Jorge Montes (Chair, Illinois Prisoner Review Board) and Texas State Representative Jerry Madden (Chair, House Committee on Corrections) also testified at the request of Representative Mike Festa. A complete copy of the testimony is available on the right under Helpful Information and Websites.

ABA Commission Approves Recommendation to Limit Access to Criminal History Information

The Commission has proposed new ABA policy on access to criminal history information. Working with other ABA sections and representatives of the professional background screening industry, the Commission has sought to develop a compromise between the values of open access and individual privacy that underlie criminal records policy, to better advance the important public safety goals of successful offender reentry and reintegration. It recommends that records of closed criminal cases that did not result in a conviction should be automatically sealed from general public access, as should misdemeanor and most felony conviction records after the passage of a specified period of law-abiding conduct. The Commission's recommendation also provides that sealed records may be reopened upon a showing of good cause, and that a sealing order may be revoked upon a subsequent conviction. Credit reporting agencies and others should be prohibited from disclosing a sealed record, and appropriate remedies should be provided for any unauthorized disclosure. In addition, evidence of an individual's conviction should be inadmissible in any negligent hiring case where access to a criminal record has been limited. The Commission's proposed new policy, which has been endorsed by the Criminal Justice Section, will be considered by the ABA House in August. A complete copy can be found under the Policy Recommendations and Reports section to the right.

PLEASE NOTE: The recommendation was withdrawn from the ABA House of Delegates prior to the August 2007 meeting, and may be re-introduced at a later date.

National Spring Conference on Overcoming Legal Barriers to Reentry

On April 30-May 1 the Commission held a national conference on The Legal Barriers to Reentry. This conference brought together policy-makers, government officials, business leaders, and community advocacy groups from across the country to explore ways in which they can together encourage successful offender reentry within their respective jurisdictions. The conference was held at Chicago Kent College of Law. Panels on the afternoon of April 30 addressed employment issues from the point of view of people with a criminal record, and from the point of view of employers. Plenary sessions on the morning of May 1 covered the legal and policy issues raised by criminal backgrounding practices, and the challenges for politicians wishing to implement a reentry initiative. Breakout sessions followed in the afternoon. Notes from this conference are posted to the right under Commission Materials.

Background

Two years ago, in his speech to the ABA Annual Meeting, Justice Anthony Kennedy challenged the legal profession to pay attention to what happens to people after they are convicted of crimes and sent to prison. He raised fundamental questions about the fairness and efficacy of a justice system that disproportionately imprisons minorities, and that returns them to their communities in no better shape than they left it. He pointed out that most states now spend more on their prisons than on their schools, and concluded that "our resources are misspent, our punishments too severe, our sentences too long."

He asked the ABA to help start a new public discussion about American sentencing and corrections policies and practices. ABA President Dennis Archer responded by establishing the Justice Kennedy Commission, whose report to the 2004 Annual Meeting contains a series of policy recommendations that have been hailed as providing a blueprint for sentencing and corrections reform.

More About Us

The ABA has received a two-year grant to continue the work begun by the Justice Kennedy Commission. Its new Commission on Effective Criminal Sanctions, co-chaired by former Illinois Governor James R. Thompson and Professor Stephen Saltzburg, will seek to develop a broad consensus among prosecutors, defenders and judges, about what can and should be done to reduce reliance on incarceration and to reduce recidivism. To begin with, the Commission will focus on the following areas:

* Alternative sentencing strategies that offer minor offenders a chance to avoid prison and a conviction record;

* Innovative community-based interventions for drug-related crimes that work to reduce recidivism;

* Laws and policies aimed at neutralizing the effect of a conviction through executive and judicial relief mechanisms, and at encouraging employment of people with criminal records.

Conference and CLE Materials

Committee Events

Roundtable on 'Second Look' Sentencing Reforms
December 8, 2008

On December 8, 2008, the ABA Commission on Effective Criminal Sanctions will hold an invitation-only roundtable conference to assess the progress made toward reform of federal sentencing in the five years since Justice Anthony Kennedy addressed the ABA House on this subject. The conference will be held in the Mecham Conference Center of the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, One Columbus Circle, N.E., Washington D.C. 20544, from 9 AM to 4:30 PM. Justice Kennedy has accepted an invitation to speak to the conference.

The specific focus of the conference is whether federal sentencing laws should provide for modification of prison sentences after they have otherwise become final. Now that the Supreme Court has returned some degree of front-end discretion to sentencing judges, and the U.S. Sentencing Commission has decided to consider expanding sentencing alternatives to incarceration, it is time to consider whether a similar degree of flexibility should be introduced into federal sentencing laws at the back end, to supplement executive clemency. This is turn raises the issue whether the concept of "truth" in sentencing is necessarily a static one that is fixed at the time sentence is imposed, and whether courts and lawyers should have a continuing role in a criminal case after "the door is locked against the prisoner." It is one that has arisen in the course of the work on the ALI Model Penal Code/Sentencing project, whose most recent draft proposes mechanisms short of full-blown parole whereby an individual's case may be returned to the sentencing court for a "second look" to consider mid-course correction.

Papers prepared for discussion at the roundtable will explore the theoretical, practical, and political challenges presented by introducing sentence reduction mechanisms into a determinate sentencing system. Topics to be discussed in prepared papers include:

The operation of mercy-dispensing mechaism like executive clemency within an administrative law framework.

The current state of parole and other administrative sentence reduction mechanisms in states that have adopted truth-in-sentencing regimes.

The proposed MPC "second look" authority, which provides for judicial reconsideration of long sentences, geriatric/medical release
Retroactive application of changes in sentencing guidelines.

Making operational the new guideline on sentence reduction for "extraordinary and compelling reasons" (USSG 1B1.13).

The role of correctional officials in determining a prisoner's release date, though earned good time, compassionate release, clemency recommendations.

Deportation of non-citizen prisoners.

Commentators for the roundtable include scholars, judges, and practitioners who have written extensively about the federal sentencing system. The roundtable will be moderated by Jeremy Travis, President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and a select group of individuals (including practitioners, policymakers, legislators, and researchers) have been invited to attend as observers. Conference papers and transcripts of the roundtable discussions will be published in the Federal Sentencing Reporter. (A list of presenters and commenters is attached.)

Invitations can be obtained on a space-available basis from Regina Ashmon in the Criminal Justice Section. AshmonR@staff.abanet.org.

Participants

Moderator:
Jeremy Travis, President John Jay College

Papers:
Rachel Barkow, NYU Law School (the politics of clemency)
Dan Kobil, Capital Law School (regularizing clemency)
Richard Frase, U of Minnesota Law School (ALI Model Penal Code/Sentencing proposal)
Mark Bergstrom and Steve Chanenson (parole and determinacy)
Doug Berman, Ohio State Law School (retroactivity of guidelines changes)
Steve Sady, Deputy Federal Defender, DOR (BOP sentence reduction authority)
Sylvia Royce, former DOJ official (deportation of non-citizen prisoners)
Nora Demleitner, Hofstra Law School (TBD)
Ronald Sullivan, Harvard Law School (TBD)
Margaret Love, former U.S. Pardon Attorney (background and overview of issues)

Commentators:
Lynn Adelman, U.S. District Judge, WDWI
Albert Alschuler, Northwestern Law School
Mark Bergstrom, PA Sentencing Commission
Paul Friedman, U.S. District Judge, DDC
Nancy Gertner, U.S. District Judge, DMA
John Gleeson, U.S. District Judge, EDNY
Garland Hunt, GA Board of Pardon and Parole
Rick Kern, Virginia Sentencing Commission
Theodore McKee, U.S. Circuit Judge, 3rd Cir.
Marc Miller, U. of Arizona Law School
Cranston Mitchell, U.S. Parole Commission
Jorge Montes, Chair, IL Prisoner Review Board
Mark Noel, CO Dir. for Exec Clemency
Chase Riveland, former Director, Washington Department of Corrections
Stephen Saltzburg, George Washington U Law
Dora Schriro, Director, AZ Department of Corrections
John Steer, Allenbaugh Samini, LLP
Carol Steiker, Harvard Law School
Kate Stith, Yale Law School
James R. Thompson, former Governor of Illinois, US Attorney
Patricia Wald, U.S. Circuit Judge, D.C. Cir. (ret).
Reggie Walton, U.S. District Judge, DDC
Jack Weinstein, U.S. District Judge, EDNY
Reggie Wilkinson, former Director, Ohio Department of Correction
Ronald Wright, Wake Forest Law School
TBD, United States Sentencing Commissioner(s)