Amy Bishop and the Issue of Background Checks

As most employers know, they should not access or consider arrest records in background checks when assessing an employment candidate.   Which means the job candidate could have been arrested dozens of times, but as long as he wasn’t convicted, this history of arrests should not be considered or included in his background check.

Now obviously this law is intended to protect the rights of the job candidate.  Everyone is innocent until proven guilty.   Or at least everyone is not guilty until proven guilty.   In other words, if Al Capone was up for a job, the employer couldn’t consider his dozens of previous arrests for all sorts of heinous crimes.   The employer could only consider the crimes for which Al Capone went to trial and was ultimately convicted.    Does this mean that Al Capone or Joe Blow was actually innocent?  No, it simply means that he was arrested but never charged as the prosecutor did not choose to move forward with criminal proceedings.

Overall, it is a fair ruling.  But then there is Al Capone.  There is also Amy Bishop.  Bishop, who has been accused of gunning down several people at the University of Alabama, had years earlier shot her own brother.   She was never convicted of any crime.   She was never even arrested, according to an article in Business and Finance, written by Gary Davis.   As Davis points out in his article, any prospective employer may want to be aware of this prior shooting.  Most employers would want to review this incident as part of their overall background check on Bishop or any other employment candidate.

Would it change anything if the hiring body, in this case the University of Alabama, was aware through a background check that Bishop had been interviewed for what was determined the accidental shooting of her brother?   It’s tough to say.  Would the University or any employer want to know this little tidbit about the person they were preparing to hire?  Probably.

It’s a tough call and not one that is easily resolved.  I realize where background checks are run and criminal records are discovered only to somehow fall through the cracks.  Then something happens,   an ugly incident, and everyone is in a furor.    In the case of Amy Bishop, perhaps if the school had discovered this past shooting incident in a background check, it may give the hiring officials some pause.   Hard to say.

I want to follow the Amy Bishop case more closely as it move through the justice system.   Meanwhile, check them out before you hire.