<p>Mary, I checked my state’s and a neighboring state’s Dept of Labor concerning this for curiosity. It certainly does appear as if questions involving an arrest are illegal, but not about a conviction. I guess you’re right: companies will ask in hope the job-seeker doesn’t know any better. Recruiters probably aren’t like that. They might ask about an actual conviction but an arrest, because they’re more highly regulated about what they can and cannot ask a prospective client.</p>
<p>OK, for a bar admission, if a person says “I was arrested, tried and acquitted for theft of $50,000”, can he or she be excluded from legal practice? That would seem like a remarkable affront to principles of justice. Even worse if negative inferences are drawn just for having been arrested while wearing a red T-shirt (and quickly released because they caught the guy with the red T-shirt AND the bag of money).</p>
<p>There are laws that do not permit certain questions on job application or interviews. You can report a company that has the question on the application forms but how diligent the authorities are about addressing this, I don’t know. If you don’t answer certain questions on the form, you are certainly risking any chance of getting a competitive position. It’s not like an interview where remarks and questions disappear in the air and proving that something was addressed is difficult, but it still isn’t going to get you the job when you report such things.</p>
<p>Re post #22. The Committee on Character and Fitness in each state determines whether an applicant can be admitted. As far as I know, none give advisory opinions. That means you have to take and pass the bar and apply for admission before the committee decides if you can be admitted. You cannot ask “Will an arrest for larceny preclude my admission?” BEFORE you pass the bar. </p>
<p>The committee will decide on a case by case basis.</p>
<p>If the company does an electronic background check, the arrest may well show up, no matter the end result of the legal process.</p>
<p>You could respond, “I have never been convicted of a crime or a misdemeanor.” That would be honest and answer what they can legally ask. Doesn’t help if all they have is a checkbox, though.</p>
<p>It won’t necessarily take an electronic search to find an arrest either. We know a young man who was arrested for a serious crime. The arrest, the charge and his name was listed in 3 different newspapers. Google him and it’s the first thing that comes up, and it shows up in multiple places.</p>
<p>He insists he is innocent and has passed a lie detector test. However, he hasn’t had his day in court. The case has simply sat, apparently unmoving, for nearly a year - the first prosecutor got a continuance, then handed it off to another prosecutor, who has gotten more continuances. No witnesses have been interviewed.</p>
<p>The accused’s life is in limbo. He has no idea if and when the case will be resolved. How is he supposed to answer “Have you ever been arrested?”</p>
<p>And no matter the outcome of his trial, his google search will always turn up those newspaper articles. It is the modern equivalent of the of The Scarlet Letter.</p>
<p>I has jury duty just last week, and I was in a pool from which the jurors (for a criminal trial) were selected. This question of arrest/conviction was asked of each of the 48 prospective jurors, but not just about ourselves, we had to include ‘any family member or anyone close to you’. One by one, we stood up and described: a son’s drug arrests, a sister-in-law’s or husband’s or their own DWI (LOTS of DWIs), one guy’s currently incarcerated cousin, a sex charge, etc., etc. This was distressing and embarrassing to hear all these strangers spilling their guts. (it didn’t help that I had to describe a particularly traumatic situation from over 30 years ago, which resulted in an acquittal). </p>
<p>You lawyers out there, is this normal in jury selection? We were all asked if our ‘experiences’ would prejudice us in the case. Personally, ‘my’ experience <em>never</em> would have entered my mind; my prejudice came from being made to to dredge it up front and center. And no, I was not chosen for the jury!</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of this before - there are lots of places where finding jurors for trials is difficult. MA even requires out-of-state college students to serve jury duty. I think that most people try to get out of jury duty - it would make for an easy way to do that - just find someone in your extended family or a neighbor or a college friend and you’re off jury duty!</p>
<p>Its the same in the uk, I was arrested on the strength of an employers false statement made to the police about things I said in a meeting, fortunately I secretly recorded this meeting and the case was thrown out, so even though totally innocent its still on my record.</p>
<p>@DontPanic</p>
<p>Yes, those questions are customary. Reason being that as a prospective juror, your experiences are relevant to your potential biases. For example, an arrest that resulted in a dismissal or acquittal might make you hostile to law enforcement.</p>
<p>OJ was arrested, but not convicted. I wouldn’t hire him!
If you were arrested, but not convicted you should be able to explain your innocence if you were innocent. If there were extenuating circumstances like someone touched your child in a lewd manner and you went to jail for breaking his legs I would hire you. However, if you got over on the system by some technicality you probably won’t be able to explain your innocence since you truly are not.</p>
<p>^^^
While the system is, indeed flawed (OJ), the premise of the judicial system is that it, ideally, differentiates between those that are guilty and those who are not. More often than not, those that are found not guilty are, in fact, not guilty. Why should they have to explain anything?</p>
<p>A school teacher was arrested and put in jail over a weekend in our state a few years ago because of an EZ-Pass (automated toll collection system) administrative error. That’s going to be on his record forever.</p>
<p>The state legislature changed the law quite quickly to fix the problem and the state reimbursed him for his expenses. That’s an extreme case of a law that was poorly written but we have a lot of those where police officers can’t use discretion.</p>
<p>We could also talk about the Duke Lacrosse case but I would hope that anyone familiar with the US Criminal Justice system would recognize that arrests can happen, even where you don’t do anything.</p>
<p>Even if someone pleads guilty to a charge and is convicted, it doesn’t necessarily mean he did the act he pleads guilty to. Sometimes “legal fiction” is used to get a conviction where someone pleads guilty to a lesser violation they didn’t even do to avoid maybe a more serious charge and less severe sentencing is used. You can’t always rely on simply seeing a conviction citation, you have to refer to full court records and case file to see fully and more accurately determine what someone might have done.</p>
<p>EPTR wrote
Spoken like someone with little experience in the criminal justice system. The vast majority of people who win their cases have effectively dodged the proverbial bullet. Reasons why cases get dismissed:
- The victim decides not to cooperate;
- Witnesses decide not to cooperate;
- Victims or witnesses get arrested for something else and their credibility is shot;
- Victims or witnesses die;
- The accused cooperates and helps law enforcement land a bigger fish;
- The case is dismissed on a technicality like:
A. A speedy trial violation;
B. Evidence gets suppressed;
C. Prosecution makes a procedural mistake. - Accused makes a package deal and one or more cases gets dismissed in exchange for a guilty plea on another case;
- Successful completion of a diversion program;
- The accused did it but a deficiency in proof results in acquittal; and
- The accused did it, but presented fabricated evidence (false alibi, etc.) and the jury bought it.
- The accused was truly innocent.</p>
<p>By no means is this an exhaustive list, but take it from an ex-prosecutor (5 years) who now defends criminal cases (20 years), “most” people found not guilty are not necessarily innocent. The two word expression “not guilty” really means that the case wasn’t proved.</p>
<p>Lizard also makes an excellent point. There are times when the conviction charge bears little relation to the offense committed. When that happens, and it happens every single day, the only way to ascertain what really happened is to go to the record. </p>
<p>As all of this relates to the college admissions process, there are, today, a proliferation of judicial diversion and other court actions that result in arrests with no criminal conviction even though the accused is guilty as charged. That is a good thing, in my opinion because today we also have a law enforcement system that results in arrests for things that in past generations would have resulted in a ride home and a stern warning. The problem colleges face is how to adequately screen for the students involved in minor drug activity or petty matters and who managed to slip by with judicial diversion, or the student granted youthful offender status (i.e. not a conviction) on a case involving sexual misconduct, burglary, or violence. In the former cases, the school might be willing to take a chance. In the latter cases, would you want your child to be the offender’s roommate?</p>
<p>I know that the boards of nursing in most states require you to report and explain all arrests and convictions. I’ve heard many times of nurses not reporting convictions which were later expunged, thinking they were “erased,” only to be found out by the background checks done by the nursing board. They are then either not allowed to take the licensing exam after nursing school due to “dishonesty” or, in the case of licensed nurses trying to renew their licenses, have those licenses pulled.</p>
<p>Nurse candidates who do admit and explain all arrests and convictions are still subject to being denied the opportunity to sit for boards or having their licenses revoked.</p>
<p>Apparently the nursing boards get a much more complete background check than most employers are able to access.</p>
<p>speihei,
Point taken! You have humbled me. I guess what I should have said is that there are cases where innocent people are arrested and yet, that will appear on their record forever. </p>
<p>NRDSB4,</p>
<p>I think that any CORI check will turn up an arrest, even if the child was a juvenile at the time. My understanding is that if someone is arraigned, it will show as a blip on their record. Even if it is expunged, something is there.</p>
<p>That is the part that i think is wrong. If a person is found innocent or the charges are dismissed (whether you believe in the validity of the process that led to that result), it shuld not appear on their record.</p>
<p>It’s really very rare for someone to be found “innocent.” Most people are found not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. </p>
<p>It’s really a complex issue. There is NO doubt that lots of people who are arrested really are innocent. But charges are dismissed for lots of reasons. One reason is that you agreed to testify against someone in exchange for the dismissal.</p>
<p>There was a pizza joint, now closed, close to the college my kid attended. I think you would have to look under six years of age to be refused service. However, it ONLY served beer and wine. It also served pizza. It was a freshman hangout and lots of folks underage bought beer and wine with their pizzas. But…it was within walking distance of the frosh dorms–closer than the college parking lot. Nobody was drinking and driving. And most kids did eat a pizza–they didn’t just drink. </p>
<p>Well…the cops busted it. They caught a gazillion underage kids there. (My kid was there, but got tipped off by a friend who saw the cops before entering and urged his friends to exit through the rear door immediately.) They not only arrested the kids who were drinking beer, they also arrested some of the waiters/waitresses. </p>
<p>The cops really weren’t interested in the kids. So it offered immunity to a lot of them if they would testify against the pizza place owner. Some kids, especially the waiters/waitresses, actually turned down the deal–the owner was a good guy. I mean that. He gave part time jobs to a lot of kids, was flexible about time off when they needed to study for exams, let some internationals who stayed on campus when school wasn’t officially in session eat for free when they had no money to pay, let kids who were in financial straits borrow money against future earnings without charging interest, etc. But, of course, some kids took the deal and testified against the owner in exchange for getting the charges against them dismissed.</p>
<p>The kids who refused to testify against the pizza joint owner have records for underage drinking. Those who agreed to testify against him do not. </p>
<p>Which would you prefer to hire? Hey, I’m not condoning what the owner did…though I don’t really think that serving beer and wine to college kids ought to be a crime. But I do respect the kids, especially those who were employees, who refused to testify against the man because they were grateful to him for all the good things he had done.</p>
<p>In any event, the fact that charges were dismissed against some of the kids did NOT mean they were innocent. It only meant that they were willing to testify against their employer.</p>
<p>Jonri, there are not a lot of people who are arrested that are found innocent, there’re a lot of people found “not guilty” a huge difference. I’ve arrested a couple thousand and I can tell you they were all guilty. Yes, some of those arrests were unavoidable due to the law and requirements, but most needed to go. However the courts in their skewed view of the justice system saw to let many off the hook. Why do you think there’s so much money in the defense game?<br>
Your pizza story is heartwarming, but the man was lining his pockets with the money from underage sales and that’s it. He knew the dangers. Personally I think college kids should be allowed to drink, but when a business owner decides that he’s not going to respect the license that he paid a lot of money for then he deserves to be punished. He walked a fine line and he lost. He should have stopped selling the beer and wine and just fed them, he would’ve still made his money.</p>