Monday, February 15, 2010

Two Very Important Bills to Support This Week

There are two very important bills coming up in the House Judiciary Committee this week that I need all of my readers to write/call/visit about.

The first bill, sponsored by Rep. Steve Hurst is HB253. This bill would require any public agency testing blood or urine samples to determine if an individual is in compliance with the terms of his or her parole or probation to retain the samples for a certain period of time to allow independent testing at the cost to the individual when the samples test positive.

Currently, if a probationer or parolee test positive for drugs or alcohol they are immediately sent back to jail with no recourse to get an independent test conducted on their urine sample. Here is a link to a page that lists all of the different things that can cause a false positive on a urine screen. The long list is near the bottom of the page. According to Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb's recent address to the joint session of the House and Senate there are 1,600 in Alabama prison for technical violations such as a false positive on a drug screen. That is costing Alabama taxpayers nearly $25 million a year just to house them in prison. Also, here is an excellent article by the BHAM News in 2004 that is being used by the Alabama Sentencing Commission which covers this very subject.

Next up is Rep. Chris England's records expungement bill. HB483. Existing law does not authorize the criminal record related to a charge to be sealed or expunged if the person is found not guilty of a crime or if the charges are dismissed or for a conviction record to be sealed or expunged.
This bill would authorize a person charged or convicted of certain felony or misdemeanor criminal offenses, a violation, or a traffic violation to petition the court in which the charges where filed or in which the conviction occurred to have his or her records expunged, including, but not limited to, arrest records, fingerprints, photographs, or index references in documentary or electronic form, relating to the arrest or charge, or both, and conviction in certain instances.

The House Judiciary Committee contact info is here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

people of this greast state of alabama.please listen to mr.england i was pardon from the state of alabama pardon and parole board.if gonna give the people that have been clean for years of crime why not make them hole.we are not talking about giving thugs clean records to child preditors anr murders sex offenders .i believe if you are a preacher ,minister,you should not be over a congergation.please support this bill in the house as we speak.call the sclc,montgomery improvement people,naacp,community leaders,pastors ,preaches,alvin holmes,wiliam boyld,rev,nettles,rev,jiles williams,joe reed,al dixion, shorter alabama,birminham,alabama,white hall,we need your support white or black.remember crimr do not have colors just crime ,lets get pass the dirty south and change politics forever please call your people are lets ralley at the state capitol.remember you sent them to montgomery to work for the people.and do not forget you can find yourself on the wrong side of the track.pray and hope that this bill pass.if the people now your crime they would sit next to you on sunday moring lets change that comcepts and pass the rigt bill to help them tate are tryig to do good in their community.

Anonymous said...

I agree if someone molests or does anything with a child that they should be on a sex offender list. But these days if a boy so much as lays one finger on a girl not even in a sexual way they are immediately categorized as a sex offender. Check out the rules for the state of Alabama. Pretty much anything can be considered sex abuse and there is no little i's or big i's. any sex abuse equals a sex offender. That is something that follow these young men the rest of their lives and shouldn't. Once your on a sex offender list it's for life. I think a sex offense should be a true SEX offense and not just anything. Some young men are being ruined for life because of girlfriends who dated and participated in sex than lied to cover their own butt. There should be a line between a true sex offender and a immature boy who made a bad choice when it comes to picking out a girlfriend.