Circumlocutions

cott Green­field at Sim­ple Jus­tice adds to an ongo­ing dis­cus­sion regard­ing trans­parency in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.
   The orig­i­nat­ing post came from Doug Berman who sug­gested the idea there should be reg­is­tra­tion for all con­vic­tions in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.
   The next sally came from Bobby Fred­er­ick who raises the very valid con­cerns of mis­takes and poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

   Scott fol­lowed up by bring­ing to light the con­cern of peo­ple who have been through the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and come out the other side. These peo­ple who have paid the debt that they accrued should be left with a clean slate with­out another obsta­cle in the way of their reha­bil­i­ta­tion. As is often the case, I found myself agree­ing with him.
   I felt like I had to add my 2¢ to this dis­cus­sion since ear­lier this month I finally met the client whose appeal I helped write the brief for. The client was con­victed and found guilty by the jury. I met him and his wife at the oral argu­ment. (I was there to lis­ten, not to argue — indeed there would have been seri­ous issues had I argued.) The client’s wife men­tioned that he was hav­ing a hor­ri­ble time find­ing a job as a result of his felony. I should make clear that his actions were nei­ther vio­lent nor dan­ger­ous and he was not even crim­i­nally neg­li­gent. It was one of those many statu­tory offenses that most peo­ple would never imag­ine ever com­ing up in real­ity. How­ever, he was found guilty of it and that has killed his chances to earn a liv­ing.
   Doug’s sug­gested reg­is­tra­tion incor­po­rates infor­ma­tion regard­ing what the con­vic­tion was for, but to most peo­ple the con­vic­tion itself is enough of a rea­son to shun them. Why give the masses another reminder?

   On an unre­lated topic, I have no idea what the title of this post means, but it sounded suf­fi­ciently dra­matic. So, there you go.