I've Got a Secret Criminal Past

July 24, 2007— -- A controversial bill working its way through the Ohio Legislature would help state residents with multiple felony convictions hide their criminal records from prospective employers.

Opponents said the initiative is unfair to employers, who fear they would not have all necessary information when making hiring decisions. But supporters of the proposed "second chances'' bill said it would stem recidivism rates and help those who have shown they can live law-abiding lives find work beyond minimum wage jobs. Prospective applicants must go five years without being arrested before they are eligible to have their records sealed.

People who are convicted of the worst felonies -- class one or two -- will not be eligible for the proposed program, and the bill includes a list of crimes that would automatically disqualify candidates, including murder, kidnapping, abduction and sex crimes.

Police, public school districts, health care agencies and some government institutions would always have access to the documents, regardless of whether ex-offenders' attempts to have them sealed succeed or not. Journalists, employers and the rest of the public wouldn't be able to view them.

The process would require a judge to review an applicant's record following a recommendation from a prosecutor before making a final decision.

Employment Doors Closed

The bill is designed to help people like Susan, an Ohio woman who spoke to ABC News on the condition that her last name not be used.

Susan was a human resources executive for a major corporation before she pleaded guilty in 2000 to 43 felony counts related to prescription drug abuse after she acknowledged writing herself hundreds of prescriptions for Adderall and other medications. Facing a lengthy prison sentence, she agreed to a plea bargain that spared her from incarceration.

Susan got court-ordered treatment for her addiction, and after spending the three years of her probation going to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings and receiving chemical dependency counseling, she said she looked forward to re-entering the work force.

But that task proved harder than she thought, and by 2005, Susan said she had hit her ultimate low -- what she called an unplanned suicide attempt caused by the frustration of not being able to return to her normal life.

"I couldn't even get a job at McDonald's," she said. "Society would not accept me, and I didn't want to go back to a life of crime. I was so utterly in despair."

Today, Susan hasn't given up her job search, but so far has had little luck in finding employment.

"I just got turned down from Wal-Mart when they did the background check," she said. "As soon as they found I'm a convicted felon, they immediately eliminated me. Company policy is company policy."

Instead of working a paid job, Susan said she now volunteers at Alcoholics Anonymous and has recently joined the effort to pass state senate bill 197.

The bill's sponsor is Ohio State Sen. Shirley Smith, who introduced a similar unsuccessful measure as a state representative that would have required ex-offenders to wait seven years before applying to have their records shielded from public view.

Smith's own son is a convicted felon, although this bill would not apply to him because of the serious nature of his crimes. Her son, William Allison, is currently serving a prison term for drug trafficking.

Smith said she hopes her bill, which the state senate will consider in the fall, will help ex-offenders reach their full potential in the workplace after they have served their time and demonstrated they have reformed their lives.

"Those people cannot take care of their families, become part of our community, and it causes our recidivism rate to rise," Smith said. "Usually, most of these crimes … they really happen in a person's youth, thereby saying these things are done when it's a bad judgment call."

'Radical Departure'

Some groups representing private employers said Ohio's current laws on ex-offenders are adequate, and the bill doesn't go far enough to protect employers.

"A person's criminal history is available today for a very good reason -- it allows employers to make very good hiring decisions," Tony Fiore, director of labor and human resource policy for the Ohio chamber of commerce, told ABC News.

Current Ohio law allows one-time offenders to apply to have their records sealed. Although most states have legislation regulating who is eligible to have criminal records sealed, Smith's bill is unlike other such laws, said Michael Hough, task force director of criminal justice and homeland security at the American Legislative Exchange Council.

"I think [Smith's] bill goes a lot further than most states do" in broadening eligibility to have records sealed, Hough said. "This would tend to be more on the liberal side."

Most states either require ex-offenders to wait longer before having records sealed, or they allow only one-time offenders or one offense to be sealed, according to a document provided to ABC News by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Smith's bill broadens both of these rules, so a person who has any number of lower-level felony convictions or misdemeanors -- excluding any crime on the exceptions list -- can potentially have his or her records sealed.

The proposed bill is a "radical departure" from Ohio's current system, said John Murphy, executive director of the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association. "You've got to draw the line somewhere, and we've always drawn it at one [offense], and we think it should not go beyond that," he said. "[Ex-offenders] should be able to get jobs, but the employer who's going to employ them should know what they're getting themselves into."

Small employers, where every hire has an impact on the business, would be disproportionally affected, according to Roger Geiger, Ohio executive director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses. "The fastest-growing area of litigation for businesses is employment issues," Geiger told ABC News. "Small employers are not afraid of taking risk with their employees, but it's already very litigious, it's already very contentions as is, and we're saying don't add to that problem."

Geiger said an employer's ability to view an applicant's criminal background is important to honesty in the employer-employee relationship."It at least allows an employer, if they see somebody has a conviction, they can ask the right kind of questions," he said.

'The Past Is the Past'

Susan acknowledged her criminal past but wants to move on with her life after serving probation and becoming sober following more than 20 years of addiction.

"I'm not saying I'm not a criminal; I am a criminal, and I know that. I made some bad choices," she said. "There are certain things I understand, but why can't I work in an office? I'm not looking to be the president of a company. I just want to make a decent salary so I can save for retirement."

Susan said it wasn't until after she pleaded guilty to 43 class four and five felonies that she learned from her lawyer the facts about having a criminal record: It would follow her everywhere under Ohio's current law because of her guilty plea to multiple charges committed over a period of two years.

Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said he supports the concept of the bill and favors second chances for people being released from Ohio's prisons.

"Doors shouldn't be slammed on you merely because you had a felony conviction," he said. "All people have a right to try to change their lives. And we in society at some point have to say, the past is the past."

The bill will most likely be revised as it moves through the state senate in the fall, Smith said, but she believes she can get it passed.

Laws on sealing and expunging criminal records vary from state to state, many of them covering employment by public agencies. Only Hawaii bars an employer from asking about an applicant's criminal record until the applicant is offered a job. And many states have laws that allow records to be sealed, but in a much tighter set of circumstances than Smith's bill envisions.

Hough, of the American Legislative Exchange Council, said he believes the Ohio bill is likely to meet some opposition in the Legislature, and he doubts that if it does pass other states will rush to draft similar legislation.