The voting rights is one issue, but the 'lifetime denial of employment' would be hard to argue for; it isn't the court that is doing that.

How would you avoid it? You would need something like the EU's 'right to be forgotten', which has serious first amendment issues here in the US.

As to other ways to avoid lifetime employment denial, a lot of places are forcing at least public sector places and many private sector employers to "Ban The Box" [1] that is to say remove the initial questions about criminal history. They are still allowed to ask at a later date, but the idea is that the people just won't be completely culled without care (which is technically against US employment law anyways).

1: http://www.nelp.org/publication/ban-the-box-fair-chance-hiri...

Ban the box legislature seems to do very little, it exists in Mass but it's paired with the CORI system where the court system simply gives you the court history over to employers. I have seen a business rescind an offer from an engineer <5 days from when he was supposed to start and after he had ended employment with his previous company, over a misdemeanor on his CORI.

The first amendment concerns with the EU's right to be forgotten aren't answered yet in my book, but as long as everyone's life is tracked and passed around effortlessly via the internet it will be difficult to impossible for former criminals to maintain employment at good jobs.

Like many things that worked out in the past, such as cops being able to look up any individuals license plate, but are now incredibly cheap and easy to do because of technology, background checks are becoming onerous because they are done for _everyone_ instead of being done only when necessary

Edit: I want to add that businesses rescinding offers like this means the employee I quit can not access unemployment because they have quit their oldjob but not been "fired" from their new job. The obvious response is to no longer give two weeks notice to your old employer but then people talk and you get a reputation as a mercenary while companies look for some level of loyalty. The end result is you get fucked either way

you could have something like the rehabilitation of offenders act from the UK. After sometime old convictions are spent and don't need to be declared to potential employers, even if they ask about them.

http://hub.unlock.org.uk/knowledgebase/a-simple-guide-to-the...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitation_of_Offenders_Ac...

Not at all. Significantly worse punishments were commonplace when the Constitution was drafted.

There's rich jurisprudence on what that clause means, but there's no way the current consequences of a felony conviction even comes close.

>Not at all. Significantly worse punishments were commonplace when the Constitution was drafted.

Good thing 2017 law-makers and justices don't abide by BS 3 century old documents as if they were some holy text then...

Oh, wait...

Would you similarly feel that we should ignore the "bs 3 century old" text of the First Amendment, or how about the right to a jury trial? Or how about double jeopardy? Certainly, continental Europeans feel such notions are antiquated as they've basically abolished free speech if it ventures too far outside the Overton Window. And the English have steadily chipped away at the jury trial, and recently allowed double jeopardy.

We have a process for changing that text. A process that is intentionally difficult. I prefer we follow that democratic process than the whims of nine unaccountable men.

You might like it when you have a majority on the Supreme Court that feels your way, but it wasn't so long ago that the Lochner-era court forced a conservative and intentional misreading of the Constitution instead. That was as much a perversion as the liberal judicial activism of late. The whole point of a constitutional system is that we have a supermajoritarian process to put certain things above daily politics.

>Would you similarly feel that we should ignore the "bs 3 century old" text of the First Amendment, or how about the right to a jury trial?

I'm not an American, so I don't feel anything for the invocation of the First Amendment as some semi-holy foundational text -- or any other text for that matter.

Now, for the ideas behind the First Amendment or the jury trial, it's historical legacy is irrelevant as to whether people should continue to bear it/enforce it today. 2017 people should push what makes sense for 2017 -- regardless of the dictums of some long gone noble figures and without their weight...

>Certainly, continental Europeans feel such notions are antiquated as they've basically abolished free speech if it ventures too far outside the Overton Window.

Or we have different ideas on the matter, and we don't base ours in what some 18th century figure said or did not say. Now, our ideas could be better or worse, but the latter part is important.

>The whole point of a constitutional system is that we have a supermajoritarian process to put certain things above daily politics.

In other words -- to force certain laws some leaders felt strongly about above the easy reach of the democratic process -- which can very well be "daily", why not?

The tempers of democracy are dangerous, so we put some things beyond its reach, unless extraordinary consensus is found to change that set of things.

McCarthy and his ilk could shame people all he wanted, but they weren't able to get people thrown in prison for allegedly believing in communism, because the Constitution doesn't allow it.

At various times in history you could have gotten bills through Congress declaring people guilty and authorizing their punishment without trial. Thankfully, the Constitution doesn't allow such things.

>The tempers of democracy are dangerous, so we put some things beyond its reach, unless extraordinary consensus is found to change that set of things

I understand the notion, but who determines what those things are though? And who judges that/those persons? Who says those things that "need extraordinary consensus" to change are indeed good and should be kept difficult to change?

Slavery took a civil war to change, and it could just as well have been noted down as one of those "things beyond its reach". Would that be ok?

Or, for an recent example, that some consider a bad thing but still requires "extraordinary consensus": private gun ownership.

>McCarthy and his ilk could shame people all he wanted, but they weren't able to get people thrown in prison for allegedly believing in communism, because the Constitution doesn't allow it.

At various times in history you could have gotten bills through Congress declaring people guilty and authorizing their punishment without trial. Thankfully, the Constitution doesn't allow such things.

I'm not so sure. For the communists, for example, if they really wanted that (and merely FUD wasn't enough to thwart them) that could be achieved with some trivial technical re-definitions (e.g. from "believers in communism" to "traitors" and "collaborators with the enemy"), and few would bat an eye. Like with the Japanese-Americans during WWII.

But being able to declare people guilty without trial is usually not necessary except in the direst of dark rules -- if the decisions of trials fit the intents and prejudices of the ruling elites that's just as well. Most dictatorships for example also have trials. It's just that they make the laws and have the support of the judges.

like what, the still up and going death penalty? doesn't get much more severe than that.

I'm no lawyer, but also relevant is the human right to provide for yourself.

The "right to earn a living" is a pillar of the common law tradition that hasn't gotten the respect and deference it deserves since at least the 1930s.

or the "pursuit of happiness" mentioned in the constitution

Well it is certainly cruel, but hardly unusual...

depends on the sense of the word. In another sense, like irregular, it would simply be a self fulfilling prophecy, ie. it's forbidden to use what can't be used, isn't in the regulation, etc.

If you appoint to the Supreme Court enough clowns willing to pretend to find their own politics between the lines of the Constitution, anything is possible.