Minnesota Supreme Court hears challenge to employing people with convictions
Landing a good paying job with a criminal record can be a challenge, and that work is a stabilizing force for those trying to rebuild their lives.
Minnesota’s Criminal Offender Rehabilitation Act, or CORA, was written with this challenge in mind. It protects a pathway for convicted Minnesotans to good public sector jobs after they’ve successfully completed their sentences, holding that employers can’t discriminate based on a prior conviction alone.
But CORA is currently under challenge.
The case of McNitt v. Minnesota IT Services
In 2021, Minnesota IT Services, or MNIT, sought a web developer to fill a position with the Minnesota Department of Education.
McNitt applied and was ultimately offered the job, pending a background check. That check, however, revealed that he’d been convicted four years earlier of possessing child pornography. Despite providing evidence to support that he’d successfully completed his sentence and probation, and that he’d remained law abiding, MNIT disqualified him from the job.
McNitt filed an administrative appeal.
What did the administrative law judge determine?
While McNitt’s conviction was directly related to the position he was offered, MNIT should remove the disqualification from his record and offer him an identical position elsewhere. The MNIT commissioner, however, rejected the judge’s recommendation, and he was barred from applying for other Minnesota public sector jobs until 2027.
McNitt again appealed the decision.
The Minnesota Court of Appeals found that the CORA language did not give MNIT the discretion to disqualify McNitt if he provided the documents to support his rehabilitation, which he had.
This case, and my amicus brief, are now being considered by the Minnesota Supreme Court.
What’s at stake in this Minnesota Supreme Court decision?
This case is far bigger than one petitioner, one crime.
Who gets charged with a crime in Minnesota? And who has access to the resources necessary to mount a vigorous defense?
Data shows the structural inequities of our criminal justice system. Minnesotans of Color are stopped more often, charged with more serious crimes, and handed harsher sentencing decisions than their white counterparts.
Consider drug convictions, for instance.
There was a time when possession of crack cocaine, which is more prevalent in Black communities, was punished more harshly than the powder form of the drug most common in the white population.
And these sentencing decisions create life-long consequences; obstacles to gaining employment among them. CORA helps address this particular inequity by protecting a pathway to the good-paying jobs that create stability in their lives.
The Minnnesota Supreme Court decision is now pending, and it could have enormous consequences for Minnesota workers.
