NEW HAMPSHIRE EYES REMOVING LICENSE BAN FOR FORMER FELONS
OCCUPATIONAL LICENSE RESTRICTIONS ARE JUST ONE PART OF THE NEW JIM CROW. CLEAN SLATE MOVEMENT SEEKS SECOND CHANCES FOR ALL.
July 3, 2024
New Hampshire has agreed to dismantle a part of the New Jim Crow.
A state regulation barring former felons from being licensed as fishing guides will be rewritten to allow them to be considered on a case-by-case basis, if a proposed settlement in a federal civil rights lawsuit is approved.
"Everybody deserves a second chance," JB Nicholas, the plaintiff in the lawsuit said. "There's a lot of work to be done to finalize the deal, but making it harder for former felons to find work is not just wrong it breeds more crime."
Nicholas applied for the occupational license New Hampshire requires to be a fishing guide in 2022. He was denied because he'd been convicted of manslaughter in New York in 1991.
In 2023, Nicholas filed a federal civil rights lawsuit challenging the denial. His lawsuit alleged the decision by the state Fish & Game Department violated his constitutional right to work in a profession of his choice as well as his right to free speech and association.
New Hampshire moved to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming Nicholas' rights weren't violated. But New Hampshire's chief federal judge, Landya McCafferty, found Nicholas's allegations, if true, stated legally sound First Amendment claims in a decision on Mar. 28, 2024.
The precedent-setting decision held outdoor guiding protected by the First Amendment because Nicholas alleged "his work as a guide would allow him to 'speak, share and teach'" and "going off-grid, and off-line, can be a radical, even revolutionary act and protest against the Digital Age status quo.”
New Hampshire is the only state in the 50 United States that automatically bars forever anyone ever convicted of any felony from applying for a fishing guide license. While many other states have some kind of restriction, New Hampshire's is the only permanent ban.
Nicholas is The Free Lance's publisher, and this reporter’s partner.
Laws like New Hampshire’s, barring former felons from obtaining occupational licenses, are part of the New Jim Crow. 77 million Americans with criminal records are trapped in social-economic slavery by a web of federal, state and local laws that make it nearly impossible for them to find good jobs.
The Digital Age supercharged the New Jim Crow. It traps everyone. It makes sure poor people stay poor—whatever their race.
"That is a moral outrage," the Chairman and Chief Executive of JP Morgan & Chase, Jamie Dimon, declared in a 2021 New York Times Op-Ed.
In the New Hampshire case, state Attorney General John M. Formella's office agreed in principle that the Fish & Game Department's regulations governing fishing guide licenses would be revised to eliminate provisions barring all former felons from being licensed.
In its place will be a time-limited ban ending after a number of years to be negotiated, according to a letter from the attorney general's office dated July 2, 2024. In addition to the factors typically considered by licensing officials, special factors to be negotiated "including any evidence of rehabilitation" will also be considered.
Nicholas won a similar lawsuit against New York. Officials there changed their outdoor guide licensing regulations and issued him a license in 2023.
The 54-year-old lost a lawsuit for a guide license in Maine, but the US Supreme Court is seriously considering his request for permission to appeal to it—as indicated by a highly-unusual May 6 order requiring Maine respond to Nicholas's request.
A final settlement in the New Hampshire case, if reached, will trigger a formal and public rule-making process.
That process includes public notice of the proposed rule change, a public hearing and review by a joint state legislative committee on administrative rules. It can take two-to-six months to complete, before the new regulation goes into effect, the attorney general says.
If the proposed amendments are rejected, the federal lawsuit would resume, because a federal court could order the changes.
But Nicholas said he has faith “the Live Free or Die state will do the right thing."