Thank you for this excellent and thorough coverage of these redemptive (or recognition-of-redemption) Certificates.
In Ohio, too, we are engaged in a extensive statewide education effort with lawyers, judges, employers, service-providers, and potential applicants. It is important to highlight the concrete legal effects of these Certificates. Many of them, such as Ohio's "Certificates of Qualification for Employment" (CQEs), change someone's legal status when they are in front of some state licensing board that has an explicit regulation barring people with particular records. Ohio's CQEs also have a unique, additional feature to enhance their attractiveness to employers: businesses that hire a CQE holder cannot be sued for a negligent-hiring tort for that employee. (The Society for Human Resource Management's 2012 survey reported that fears of negligent-hiring liability are the #1 reason employers use criminal-history checks.)
Readers interested in more about Ohio's CQEs can find out more from the Ohio Justice & Policy Center's numerous resources on the topic, such as our one-pager and our self-help workbook.