By Mani Dabiri | Published June 25, 2019 | Posted in Federal and State Criminal Defense, Post-Conviction Defense and Appeals, White-Collar and Regulatory Defense | Tagged Tags: collateralconsequences, punishment, rehabilitation, sentencingalternatives, smartoncrime |
Giving the Gift of Education
How’s this for an idea? Let’s reinstate Pell grants for people in prison. What are those? They are federal grants that help people pay for college who otherwise can’t. They require you to use the money for higher education and maintain satisfactory progress toward a degree. People in prison were eligible for them until 1994 but Read More
Read MoreNew California Criminal Laws: Part One
Let’s get to it. We’ve already covered the big new bail law, which won’t go into effect until October 1. Here are three new laws effective January 1, 2019. Drunk driving will catch you an ignition-interlock device on your car. This is Senate Bill 1046. It amends the Vehicle Code to require most anyone who’s convicted of Read More
Read MoreWhy We Defend People
In 2009, I was a prosecutor in Orange County when I became a defendant in my own criminal case. I was falsely accused of domestic violence, and I was charged with two felony counts even though I was the one who called the police three times that night over my accuser’s behavior. It was surreal. Read More
Read MoreThe Common Application Bans the Box
Do you have a kid in high school? Are you in high school yourself and plan to go to college? You may want to check this out. On August 7, the Common Application announced that it will no longer ask about an applicant’s criminal record, starting with the 2019-20 pool of applicants. The Common Application Read More
Read MoreMisdemeanors are the Meat and Potatoes
The meat and potatoes of the criminal justice system, that is. And you may think of them as small potatoes, but they’re not. They take up most of the space on the proverbial plate, and they’ve got bite. They take up the most space because they make up eighty percent of all criminal cases across Read More
Read MoreCalifornia’s New Law of Fair Shakes
Whether you’re an employer or an employee, take note. Earlier this month, California enacted the Fair Chance Act. This means that, beginning next year, many employers can no longer ask about or look into criminal convictions until they’ve decided a person is right for the job. That means they can’t ask about convictions anymore on a job application. Read More
Read MoreLifetime Sex-Offender Registration for Kids
Do you think sex-offender registration is punishment? What if it’s for life? What if it’s for a 12-year-old boy? Last week, the California Court of Appeal ruled that it’s not punishment to call a kid a sex offender for life because of something he did when he was twelve years old. According to the court, the boy’s early years Read More
Read MoreThe Restoration of Rights Project
Have you ever been arrested? Do you have a prior conviction? Do you wonder whether you can clean up your record and how that affects you, if at all? Start here. It’s called the Restoration of Rights Project, and it looks at the law in every state for restoring your rights and status after an Read More
Read MoreThe Modern Public Square
This week brought us another unanimous U.S. Supreme Court case that’s arguably more important because it concerned the First Amendment. The issue was a North Carolina law that made it a felony for registered sex offenders to use any social-networking site that let minors join. So, to be clear: that’s any social-media site, period, that let minors join. That Read More
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