“The American way of civil death (to innovate Jessica Mitford’s well-known book title) outlasted the system of forced labor to which it was originally addressed. It also survived the welfarist turn in Progressive and New Deal penology. Once fully assembled, the machinery of civil death functioned largely unattended and, until very recently, all but invisibly.”

Nowhere is this better seen than the process of overturning a conviction after sentence is served. The only available means to accomplish this is a special writ called the Writ of Coram Nobis. Civil death and all its consequences are masterfully documented by Rebecca McLennan in the article above. Case law reveals, however, that most Circuit Courts of Appeal have ruled that simply being a convicted felon is not a sufficient “civil disability” to warrant a judge to give a posthumous look at a felon’s case.

Really? The collateral consequences of being a convicted felon are well documented, but the culture of criminal justice in America is such that it is not even recognized by the courts. The view of the judiciary, the legislatures of state and federal governments, and the complacency of the average American must all change in order to remedy the civil death of American citizens at the hand of the current criminal “justice” system.