Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in Washington

Re: Employment with a criminal record

Criminal convictions, especially felonies, have historically carried a strong negative social stigma, and they can and often do subject the convicted person to shame and infamy in society. This is why there is a large industry of criminal defense attorneys in our society. Individuals accused of crimes want legal defense so they can avoid going to jail and paying fines, while at the same time, they want to eschew the taint that a conviction will place upon them.

Employers in this state can legally refuse to hire you if you have a criminal history. Persons who have been convicted of crimes can be and often are legally discriminated against. Such individuals are not part of a protected class and there are no laws in this state that protect convicts from discrimination or require a prospective employer to disregard someone�s criminal convictions.

I think that you might be misconstruing the statement in the job application that �criminal history will not necessarily bar employment.� This does not mean that they are agreeing in advance to NOT base a hiring decision on someone�s criminal history. Rather, I think it means that in the right case, they may hire someone despite his or her criminal record.

If you feel that you have overcome the errors of your ways and have reformed yourself, you should urge the director to give little or no weight to your criminal record. If the convictions on your record are for relatively minor offenses (i.e. misdemeanors as opposed to felonies) or are from many years ago, you should emphasize these facts.

Have you completed some sort of post-conviction rehabilitation or treatment program?

Have you successfully complied with terms of probation and can arrange to get reference letters from your probation officer?

Do you have special skills applicable to the job that have nothing whatsoever to do with the convictions?

If the answers are yes, let the director know this as well. But also be realistic. You have no legal protections from being discriminated against, and with unemployment in this state being what it is, and the quantity of job applicants so high � You get the picture?

Finally, if your criminal history is holding you back, you may want to talk to a lawyer who focuses on vacating criminal convictions. There�s a fairly new law in this state that lets people with convictions get a fresh start, but vacation of convictions is not automatic. That is, they don�t just fall off your record over time. Depending on a number of factors, your attorney may be able to get your record wiped away so that you will have a clean slate and can legally state that you have no record at all.

Re: Employment with a criminal record

It's perfectly legal, what it means is that whatever YOU were convicted of, was of enough concern to them that they exercised their discretion in not hiring you.

BUT, if you can prove that they used that as a pretext, in other words, that someone in a non-protected class (e.g. white, male or non-disabled or younger) with your equivalent or worse record got hired, and you're a member of a protected class (e.g. a 'minority', woman or disabled), then you have something.

What will happen then, is that they will legitimately refuse to hire anyone with a criminal record in the future.