Professor Kate Mogulescu Co-Authors ABA Report on Best Practices for Criminal Record Relief for Survivors of Human Trafficking

Professor Kate Mogulescu, a national expert on human trafficking issues, has co-authored a new report “Workable Solutions for Criminal Record Relief: Recommendations for Prosecutors Serving Victims of Human Trafficking” on behalf of the American Bar Association Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence’s Survivor Reentry Project (SRP), a national training and technical assistance initiative on criminal record relief for survivors of human trafficking. Mogulescu developed SRP and has led it since 2016.

The report, co-authored by Jessica Kitson of Volunteer Lawyers for Justice in New Jersey, identifies guiding principles and best practices for prosecutors who handle post-conviction cases involving trafficking survivors. It also makes recommendations for policy and practice across the country.

In 2010, New York became the first state to allow trafficking survivors to clear certain criminal charges from their records if they occurred as a result of their victimization. Since then, almost every state has followed suit and enacted some form of criminal record relief for trafficking survivors. This report provides much-needed guidance for prosecutors in these states.

“Prosecutors wield a tremendous amount of power in the criminal legal system,” explained Professor Mogulescu. “‘Workable Solutions’ encourages them to utilize that power to assist human trafficking survivors seeking to clear their criminal records and to collaborate with the advocate community.”

Andrew King-Ries, chair of the Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence, highlighted how the report’s recommendations “recognize the critical role of prosecutors—through criminal record relief—to reducing vulnerability and isolation of trafficking survivors and to reducing human trafficking itself.  Ultimately, this is about prosecutors treating trafficking survivors as victims and doing their ethical duty to provide justice for victims of trafficking offenses.”

The legal community welcomed the report as a way to further develop criminal record relief practice nationally. The report has received a favorable reception from advocates and prosecutors alike, including Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus J. Vance.

“This report is so important because it bridges the gap that often exists between advocate/attorneys and prosecutors,” said Rachel Johnson, Senior Staff Attorney for the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation. “It brings us together so that we may collaborate to right the legal wrongs that trafficking survivors have suffered.”

Mogulescu joined the Law School as a Clinical Law professor in 2017 after 14 years with The Legal Aid Society, where she served as a supervising attorney in the Criminal Defense Practice. Her work and scholarship focus mainly on gender issues in the criminal legal system. Mogulescu is founder and director of the Criminal Defense & Advocacy Clinic, working with students at the Law School to provide critical representation for people arrested because of their involvement in the commercial sex industry and incarcerated survivors of gender-based violence.

Read the full report here.

Read the coverage in Law360.