This system has grown tremendously and, in a number of ways outlined in the sections below, serves as a paradigmatic example of the paralyzing power of the collateral consequences of common crimes.
The 1998 legislation gave DPS the unilateral authority to summarily suspend fingerprint clearance cards upon arrest for over 100 enumerated “precluding offenses,” including many misdemeanors.
Fingerprint clearance cards are required in addition to professional licensing from a state licensing board and, unlike a pre-employment criminal background check, are monitored on-going with new criminal records being automatically flagged, as they arise. With no analogue in any other state, this regulatory system placed licensing, and employment, almost exclusively into the hands of the police. Through House Bill 2585 (1998), the Arizona Legislature erected a regulatory apparatus known as “fingerprint clearance cards” (and a wholly new administrative agency, known as the Arizona Board of Fingerprinting). To better assess these consequences, we compiled information on the fingerprint clearance card laws and the most common low level crimes that we were getting lots of calls on: simple marijuana possession simple assault misdemeanor DUI criminal damage misdemeanor domestic offenses, etc.-to see how you could lose your card, and whether you have a chance of getting it back. Helping our clients to not only navigate these treacherous regulatory waters, but in fact helping them realize that they are immersed in them in the first place, is in my view paramount to effective representation. Because suspension is triggered upon arrest for a myriad of common crimes, and review as a practical matter is slow, an expedited and carefully planned resolution is critical.
Maybe one she’s had for ten years.įor these reasons, attorneys should take special care when representing a client in a criminal matter who holds any form of Arizona fingerprint clearance card. We did extensive research in this area of law and found that these fingerprint clearance cards were pretty easy to lose– sometimes merely getting a ticket for certain things in Arizona such as “criminal damage” would by itself get the card automatically “suspended.” Presto.
We’ve found that a lot of our clients have something called an “Arizona Fingerprint Clearance Card.”Īs you might expect, The Arizona Department of Public Safety (the State Police) requires that every school teacher not only have a teaching license, but a special “fingerprint clearance card,” but there are thousands of other people have to have them: the school janitor has one the lunch ladies the bus driver the kindergarten volunteers the little league coach all the minimum wage childcare workers.