Convictions in hiring criteria

mrosari

We currently have a policy that we will not hire applicants with a conviction within the last three years.

Recently, one of our managers interviewed an applicant who indicated that he had pled guilty to a dui in the last year, but because it was a first offense, the sentencing was deferred for a year. This will come off the record if nothing happens in the year. The background check also showed nothing.

My question is: is it the same in the eyes of the law if someone pleads guilty as if they went to court and the jury found them guilty? Is this technically a conviction? Part two: Would this be different depending on the state?

HCCADC

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-30-03 AT 09:03AM (CST)[/font][p]What has your practice been? Do you do criminal checks on every employee? If you do, I would use that as my source. I have to do background checks on all employees that I hire and use that as my determining factor. If it isn't on the background check, I hire the person. By the way, if the background check came up clean, how did you know about this and that the record would be clean after one year?

TN HR

This is referred to as Deferred Adjudication. It is NOT the same as a conviction because, theoretically, the judge will dismiss the charges upon good behavior during the period of deferment therefore wiping the record clean as if it had never happened.

As to the second part of your question, assuming that you have an actual conviction, it could be different depending on the state. What I mean by that is that DUI 1st offense in TX is a lower class misdemeanor than it is in TN.

What this all means is that your policy should be specific as to criminal backgrounds and eligibility/disqualification criteria. My previous company, for example, excluded applicants with pending cases, regardless of the circumstances (as in your situation), however, we allowed up to a certain level of misdemeanors for certain offenses (DUI). The kicker here is that if the DUI took place in, say, TN and it reported as a certain class (disqualifier), we were bound to use the laws of TX (our corporate headquarters) as the determining factor. In this example, since TX classified it as a lower offense, then the candidate was clear.

I hope this helps you. Keep the forum posted.

Gene