Deny that you have a record and have the lawyer who did the paperwork for the expungement send them a letter of notice to remove the item from their database or face legal problems.
Terms of expungement usually state something that the records are sealed and it is considered that the offense never happened. At the time of expungement the lawyer should also send out notices to all courts and police departments involved, the FBI and private background check companies. You are within your right to state that it never happened and that the database is incorrect.
If they ever come back and ask me. And of course they aren’t going to believe that I wasn’t arrested.
Hell, some of my own siblings don’t believe that I really had no charge to answer. Even though they joke about how straight-laced I am, their commitment to “If you don’t do anything wrong, you have nothing to fear from the police” trumps all logic and fact. Otherwise cops shooting people with little or no reason would cause painful cognitive dissonance.
I expect some employer who only knows me from a couple of interviews is going to bail on me and lie about why.
The whole point of my story is that how things are supposed to work and how they actually work are miles apart.
Interestingly, in real life the judge wouldn’t be able to help Ruth. The Missouri Gaming Commission form for a “Key Person” of a gaming location, requires you to disclose any criminal proceedings against you, even if you were acquitted, records sealed, expunged, or pardoned. But the MGC also has no automatic disqualifier for having a criminal record, I think it’s a quasi-subjective determination and a lot of State gaming commission uh…things tend to be a little sketchy and old boys clubby.
In the financial industry, the most common standard is no felonies and no theft related misdemeanors. A misdemeanor DUI is ok, but not a misdemeanor for stealing a six pack of beer!
That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it is basically accurate. Of course, there’s other factors as well. If business travel is involved, the person with the DUI may not be able to rent cars and thus wouldn’t be hired.
Not just that. The person’s ability to travel internationally might also be affected.
I worked for a place that was headquartered in Toronto. We held a week-long training session for techs from our branch offices in the US and Canada. Plenty of notice was given and we knew who would be coming–hotels were booked for every attendee, and so on. On the first day of the session, one American was missing. What happened? Was he ill?
Turned out that he had a misdemeanour DUI from ten years before, and Canada Customs and Immigration refused to let him in, on the basis that he had a criminal record. (Canada makes no distinction between misdemeanours and felonies; a criminal conviction of any sort is a criminal conviction, period.) He was denied admittance to Canada on arrival at Pearson Airport in Toronto, and put on the next plane home.
IANAL -The distinction in Canada is (I believe) between Summary and Indictable offenses; and Canada takes DUI more seriously, so a DUI could net someone (especially a repeat offender) a serious jail term. And Canadian criminal laws are federal, so apply the same in all provinces and territories.
Which is why some states and cities have “banned the box” - for example, in NYC , most employers * cannot even ask about an applicant’s criminal history until after a conditional offer of employment has been made. That offer can only be rescinded in a few circumstances - if the conviction is directly related to the job or if hiring a person with that conviction for that job causes an unreasonable risk to public safety. That actually makes it pretty easy to determine if the criminal record is what caused the offer to be rescinded.
There are exceptions - for example, when another law requires a criminal background check for certain jobs and law enforcement agencies and prospective law enforcement employees are exempt.
There’s not a distinction between the type of offences, just the way they will be prosecuted. Impaired driving is one offence. It can be prosecuted summarily (trial by judge alone), or by indictment. The difference is in the sentence. Conviction by summary process doesn’t carry as severe a top end sentence. But it’s the same offence.
They do distinguish between different types of crimes for determining if you are criminally inadmissible, they just aren’t the same as is used in the United States and they don’t use the terms felony / misdemeanor in their criteria.
The general rule is:
If the crime is punishable by 10 or more years incarceration in Canada, you have to apply for rehabilitation to overcome inadmissibility, and this application can occur no sooner than 5 years after the final disposition of your criminal punishment. This means 5 years after your incarceration, parole, probation etc is over–5 years wholly clear from it.
If the crime is punishable by less than 10 years incarceration in Canada, you are eligible for “deemed admissibility”, which is in the power of the border agent, 10 years after the disposition of the sentence. This requires no application or paperwork, but again, is up to the discretion of the border agent (they supposedly will often approve it for minor crimes as long as you don’t lie to them when questioned–but no guarantees.)
If you don’t want to wait for 10 years to reach deemed admissible eligibility, you can file the formal paperwork for rehabilitation 5 years after your sentence disposition.
The main thing that changed with DUI is in 2018 Canada made the maximum sentence for DUI 10 years, which now means you cannot be “deemed admissible” for entry, you have to apply for formal rehabilitation. However, if your DUI occurred before 2018 you are grandfathered in under the old system, so technically until 2028 or so people with DUIs in America can still be deemed admissible in some situations.
For “summary offenses” under Canadian law, you are deemed rehabilitated 5 years after the sentence disposition.
This basically means if you have any type of criminal court activity in the last 5 years you will have a really hard time going to Canada. After that you should check before traveling to Canada if you have an older conviction. Many older convictions from 10+ years ago will be eligible for deemed rehabilitation, and the border agent can let you right through on their discretion. But if you had a more serious conviction you will always have to apply for formal rehabilitation. Which involves a non-refundable application fee of a few hundred bucks and is never guaranteed to be granted.
Yes, it is. Just because someone has a criminal record doesn’t make the person guilty. Lots of innocent people have been, shall we say, through the criminal justice system, ended up with a record for a crime they didn’t commit. Just as not having a criminal record doesn’t mean one has high ethical standards, having one doesn’t mean one doesn’t. It’s not a fair world, or even country we live in. Someone who’s been “through the mill” can explain all this better. I sort of have been but not at a high level of criminality, and I was wholly innocent. The effect on me personally was devastating, and the aftershocks ruined my life. I don’t want to go over it again here. It was too long ago. I was in my early thirties at the time, and I just turned seventy.
That’s actually exactly what it means. If you’ve been found guilty by a court, or plead guilty, you are guilty. It doesn’t necessarily mean you actually committed the unlawful acts but legally speaking, you are guilty.
There are ways to acquire, as it were, a criminal record: one can take a continuance, admit to sufficient evidence to warrant a finding of guilty, which puts one on probation–checking in with a probation officer monthly, which in my case was reduced to a phone call after I earned my P.O.'s trust; and after a year’s time I return to face the judge, who dismissed the charges against me, thus clearing me of having any criminal convictions, even for jaywalking, however a dismissal of charges is not the same as a not guilty, thus I have a record, with charges dismissed. This does show up on background checks, however it seems that after a period of time, and with years of steady employment it shouldn’t have been too big an issue. There are other options out there as well, such as having one’s record sealed; however this could raise red flags: concealed for what? My lawyer said I’d probably be okay with an open record, but this festered inside me, as prospective employers don’t have to tell a job applicant whether they’re going to do a record check, and I wondered, and brooded for years over this, whether I was “checked up on”, as I had a good work history, some excellent, 5 star recommendations, including letters, yet often didn’t get calls for job interviews, nearly always from the places I most wanted to work in: colleges, universities, places where educated people go, often to start a new career, go back to school for (virtual) free, and so on. Even places where I’d worked before, when much younger, and on good terms with wouldn’t give me interviews.
I’ve also heard of employers using it as an honesty check: They ask on the application, and then they also do their own check. If you really don’t have a criminal record, that’s of course OK. If you do have a criminal record, and check the box on the application that says so, that’s also OK. But if you have a criminal record, but check the box on the application that says you don’t, then they won’t hire you.
I agree. Getting some sort of drinking-related misdemeanor in college rarely torpedoes anyone’s career. Nor does getting in a few fights, from what I can tell. All are misdemeanors and generally viewed as youthful indiscretions.
Now if I had any of those on my record from the past decade (I’m 49), that would be a different story. They’d probably wonder WTF I’m doing getting in fights or getting so drunk that I’m getting arrested for it.
Stuff like criminal mischief is probably going to be a deal breaker for many employers though, unless it’s related to something like a protest or something.
Felonies though, are essentially a no-go for many employers. The labor market has rarely been so tight that they have to even consider hiring felons.
This seems to be standard procedure. Every job application I recall doing had this question. Every one stated something to the effect that “prior convictions are not necessarily a bar to employment”, but made it clear that failure to admit having a conviction was a deal-breaker.
. . . And yet, I wonder if that is ever really true. I suspect that, in truth, acknowledging any criminal conviction is often a deal-breaker. (They usually add “Excluding minor offenses like traffic tickets.”)
Back when I was a hiring manager (hired people to work in my department) our company didn’t pay well, was small and unknown and so I had a VERY difficult time filling positions with even somewhat competent people.
One time that was very busy and I wanted someone in, my only ‘viable’ candidate was a recent college grad at about 40 that had spent time in prison for attempted murder. He was upfront and said he was 18-19 at the time and he was a changed man. He seemed stable to me and I said I would check it out and if what he said seemed to mesh with what I checked into that I saw no reason to deny him. Did I mention he was the only viable candidate?
It did and I was about to offer him the job.
I was then approached by several women in the company demanding that I do not hire him. I initially stuck to my guns…he paid for his crime…he has been out several years, went to college and had no issues…etc etc…but the INSISTED he not be hired. I went to the owner and she basically said “I see your point, I have no issue with what you did but, for office peace/dynamics, we won’t hire him”.
When I talked to him (I didn’t just send him a rejection letter), I was upfront…I wanted to hire him but the office objected and I/the owner really couldn’t reason our way out with them.
It broke my heart. One, I really believe he was a changed man and wanted to have a career and (2) did I mention he was the only viable candidate?
I assume this reflects another aspect of modern society - that nothing is forgotten by the internet and Google. Did this fellow do something specific in his crime to upset women, or was it just the general thought of working with someone who had demonstrated any lethal tendencies 20 years earlier?
It’s a common warning to college kids nowadays that your drunken frat-boy antics will be on display for future employers if you post to social media; the same only worse applies to crime news stories, even where there is no conviction.
It’s an impossible situation to resolve. Just a Catch-22 for people with a serious record. As mentioned above it is the problem of too much information. It’s not just that people know about someone’s criminal record, they know that simply working with someone leaves them exposed to someone with criminal intent. Once someone has your name and knows just a little detail about your life they could get online and find out where you live and look into your social media profile. Other employees will worry about any personal items they bring to work because a criminal can find some critical info by looking at unprotected files or just rummaging through a person’s desk or belongings. The fear runs high these days.
