Strengths

• Bans agencies from considering convictions older than seven years.

• In many cases, boards must evaluate multiple factors, including any evidence of rehabilitation, for an ex-offender’s license application.

Areas of Improvement

• Eliminate loopholes for drug crimes, violent crimes, and “unreasonable risk.”

• Strengthen safeguards for due process by requiring a petition process and placing the burden of proof on the state.

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Multiple loopholes in state law plunge Maryland’s final grade down to a D+. The state at first appears to have a strong relevancy test, requiring a “direct relationship” between conviction and license. Unfortunately, this test is immediately swallowed by a loophole that lets boards deny licenses if they determine an applicant would pose an “unreasonable risk,” which is a much weaker standard.

The standard drops even further for drug convictions. In order to deny a license, a board need only show that there is a “relationship between the drug crime and the license.” Worse, two of the state’s better protections—its seven-year time limit on old convictions and its requirement to consider multiple factors, including rehabilitation—are completely absent for Marylanders convicted of drug crimes.

Finally, any violent crime that triggers a mandatory minimum as punishment is completely exempt from the state’s licensing protections for ex-offenders.

Notably, Maryland is one of the only states with license denial data for ex-offenders. Under a 2018 law, Maryland’s licensing agencies were required to report how many applications they received and denied from ex-offenders between fiscal 2014 to 2018.

During that period, the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing, which oversees 21 boards, found “no record or indication…of anyone who was denied a license based solely on a criminal record.” However, out of the 613,034 license applications it received during that time, only 803 had a criminal record—barely 0.13%. By comparison, nearly 9,000 people were released from Maryland prisons in 2017 alone, while roughly 8% of the nation’s population has been convicted of a felony. This wide discrepancy strongly suggests that many with criminal records feel deterred and never apply for licenses.

Other credentials also saw no denials of ex-offenders. Out of 1,642 applications for the state’s residential child-care certification, 150 applications—more than 9%—were from people with a criminal record. No one was denied due to their criminal conviction. Likewise, the Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners counted four license applicants with a conviction or arrest record, none of whom was denied.

On the other hand, there were seven licensing boards at the Department of Health that received a total of 58 applications from ex-offenders. But the boards denied licenses in 12 cases—a denial rate of more than 20%.

Statute: Md. Code Ann., Crim. Proc. § 1-209, Md. Code Ann., State Gov’t §§ 10-1402 to 1405