Your Maine nursing practice has substantial benefits and rewards. Maine’s friendly population, stable economy, fine cities and towns, and strong healthcare system provide you with abundant nursing practice and employment opportunities. Yet the criminal issues that you face put all your benefits and rewards at risk of Maine State Board of Nursing disciplinary charges. The State Board could suspend or revoke your nursing license because of your criminal issues, making you unable to practice nursing anywhere in Maine and potentially to retain or gain a nursing license in other states. If that’s your situation, you can do no better than to promptly retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Professional License Defense Team to help you defend and defeat your Maine State Board of Nursing disciplinary charges. Our skilled and experienced attorneys are available in Portland, South Portland, Lewiston, Bangor, Auburn, Sanford, Buxton, South Paris, Windham, North Berwick, Waterboro, Scarborough, Oakland, and any other Maine city or town to defend your nursing license related to your criminal issues. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for our strategic and effective nursing license defense representation.
Maine Nurse Discipline for Criminal Convictions
While Maine generally has lower crime rates than the crime rates in many other states, Maine residents still commit crimes. The most recent year for which statistics are available shows that Maine residents commit well over 40,000 crimes annually. The majority of those crimes are property crimes, but well over 10,000 crimes against the person occur in Maine annually, with simple assault and intimidation being the two most common crimes against the person. Larceny and shoplifting are the two most common crimes against property in Maine, while thousands of Maine residents also commit drug and narcotics crimes, including drunk driving. Unfortunately, Maine nurses are among those residents committing crimes. The Maine State Board of Nursing has published hundreds of disciplinary actions in recent years, suspending, revoking, or otherwise disciplining licenses for a wide range of wrongs, including criminal convictions and failure to report convictions. That pattern is not unusual in Maine. Criminal issues cause one out of every ten nursing board disciplinary actions nationwide, affecting the nursing licenses of thousands of nurses. Twenty percent of disciplinary cases involve failing to report a criminal conviction. Beware of your license discipline risk. Let us help you defend your Maine State Board of Nursing disciplinary charges arising out of your criminal issues.
Maine Nurse Licensure Authority
Maine’s State Board of Nursing has the full authority of the state’s legislature to discipline your nursing license over your criminal issues. Maine Nurse Practice Act Section 2153-A empowers the Maine State Board of Nursing to license and regulate nurses for practice in the state. The Act’s Section 2106 makes it a Class E crime to practice nursing in Maine without a valid State Board of Nursing license. Maine punishes Class E crimes with up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine per violation. The State Board may also impose a civil penalty of $1,000 per violation and obtain a court injunction against unlicensed practice, enforceable with contempt sanctions, including incarceration. You must not risk unlicensed practice. Instead, let us help you defend and defeat disciplinary charges so that you can retain your nursing practice and employment in Maine.
Maine Nurse Licensure Requirements
Maine Nurse Practice Act Section 2201 states the basic qualifications for a registered nurse license in Maine, while Section 2251-A states the basic qualifications for a licensed practical nurse. The Act’s Section 2105-A states specific disciplinary grounds on which the State Board of Nursing may deny a license, refuse to renew a license, or suspend or revoke a license already obtained. Those grounds include certain criminal convictions, as discussed in the next section. The Act’s Section 2111 further requires an applicant for a license or license renewal to authorize the State Board of Nursing to conduct a criminal background check. The State Board is to use that criminal history information to assess the candidate’s qualifications to gain or retain a license. Your criminal issues can clearly affect your ability to retain or renew your Maine State Board of Nursing license. Let us help you defend disciplinary charges.
Example Maine Nurse License Disciplinary Crimes
Maine Nurse Practice Act Section 2111 lists the crimes for which the Maine State Board of Nursing may discipline your license. Those crimes include a crime “that involves dishonesty or false statement or that relates directly to the practice for which the licensee is licensed or conviction of a crime for which incarceration for one year or more may be imposed….” Consider examples of those crimes by their categories. Our attorneys can help defend you against any of these crimes.
Maine Nursing License Discipline for Dishonesty Crimes
Maine Nurse Practice Act Section 2111 first authorizes discipline for a crime “that involves dishonesty or false statement….” Crimes of dishonesty may include larceny, burglary, criminal fraud, and embezzlement. The State Board of Nursing has an interest in prohibiting practice by dishonest nurses because of the risk to patients, colleagues, and the facility. A dishonest nurse may falsify patient records, drug inventories, insurance billing records, incident reports, and other information on which patients and the facility rely for safe and competent operation. A dishonest nurse may also steal patient property or facility equipment or supplies, and make false accusations against colleagues. Honesty is a critical component of nursing practice. Beware disciplinary charges relating to crimes of dishonesty.
Maine Nursing License Discipline for Practice-Related Crimes
Maine Nurse Practice Act Section 2111 next authorizes discipline for a crime that “relates directly to the practice for which the licensee is licensed….” Practice-related crimes may include patient physical or sexual abuse, simple or aggravated assault on patients or others in the workplace, drug diversions from the facility, theft of patient or facility property, and criminal insurance fraud in Medicare and private insurance billing. The State Board of Nursing takes an interest in practice-related crime because of the risk to patient safety and to preserve public trust in the nursing profession. Beware disciplinary charges for practice-related crime.
Maine Nursing License Discipline for Felony Crimes
Maine Nurse Practice Act Section 2111 lastly authorizes discipline for a crime “for which incarceration for one year or more may be imposed,” referring to felony convictions. Felony crimes include murder, manslaughter, aggravated assault, robbery, kidnapping, false imprisonment, sexual assault, arson, drug possession, distribution, or manufacturing, depending on the substance and amount, and criminal fraud, theft, or embezzlement of valuable property. The State Board of Nursing takes an interest in felony crimes because of the safety and security issues and to preserve public trust in the nursing profession. Beware of the potential effect of a felony conviction on your nursing license.
Maine Nurse License Crime Discipline Factors
The Maine State Board of Nursing doesn’t articulate by administrative rule what crimes may relate to nursing or how it otherwise determines whether to discipline for the above potentially disqualifying crimes. Chapter 4 of the State Board of Nursing administrative rules further specifies what it considers to be unprofessional conduct, with a long list of relatively specific wrongs. In general, the factors that the State Board of Nursing may consider on whether to discipline related to a certain criminal conviction may include how serious the crime was, what was the specific nature of the crime, how much time has elapsed for rehabilitation since the crime, the remedial measures the nurse has taken, whether the crime occurred in the nursing facility or might occur in a nursing facility in the future, and how serious was the patient harm or loss or the facility loss or impact. Our attorneys know how to advocate for your license defense on these and other factors.
Defending Maine Nurse Discipline for Crimes
The Maine State Board of Nursing will not necessarily impose discipline simply because you suffered a criminal conviction. We may be able to show, for instance, that the criminal court set aside its order of conviction for error occurring in the trial or that an appeals court did so. You may alternatively have received a pardon or gained expungement of the conviction. We may alternatively be able to show that the conviction was not for a felony and not for a practice-related crime or crime of dishonesty. In other words, the Maine Nurse Practice Act’s Section 2111 may not have defined your conviction as a disqualifying crime. What you allegedly did may have had no bearing on your nursing practice or fitness for practice. We may alternatively be able to show that your actions were in the heat of passion over marital infidelity or threats to your loved ones, or triggered by some similar extraordinary circumstance not likely to repeat itself in the nursing facility. We may also show that you have completed remedial evaluation, treatment, and training, rehabilitating your character and fitness.
Differences Among Arrest, Charge, and Conviction
Our defense may be especially effective if you have only suffered a criminal arrest and charge, but not a criminal conviction. The Maine State Board of Nursing may take your criminal conviction as presumptively establishing that you committed the underlying alleged wrong. In that case, we may be able to defend the disciplinary charge on one or more of the above grounds. But the Maine State Board of Nursing should not construe your arrest or criminal charge against you if you did not suffer a conviction. Your arrest may have been mistaken, without evidence of wrongdoing, or unlawful. The prosecutor may have abandoned the charge for those reasons, or the court may have dismissed the charge on those grounds.
Differences Among Specific Crime Charges
The outcome of your disciplinary matter before the Maine State Board of Nursing may well turn on the specific circumstances of your alleged criminal misconduct. Not all crimes are alike. Indeed, every crime has something different about it, found in a close examination of the circumstances. We may, for instance, be able to defend your disciplinary charges based on an unexpected medication reaction you had, an unpredictable physical event or mental aberration, or some extraordinary relational, financial, psychological, or other pressure not likely to repeat itself. If your criminal issues involve drugs or alcohol, we may be able to show that you have already undergone effective evaluation, treatment, counseling, and other remedial measures, proving your safety, fitness, and competence for nursing practice.
Maine Nurse Duty to Report Criminal Issues
Beware of issues that may arise around your failure to report your criminal conviction. The Maine State Board of Nursing takes the position that you have a duty to self-report your conviction history. But the State Board simultaneously recognizes that many license applicants or renewal applicants fail to do so, and so the State Board aggressively investigates criminal background with frequent checks. The State Board may construe your failure to report or disclose a criminal conviction as credential fraud and may seek to discipline you on that ground, even if your conviction would not necessarily have resulted in discipline. Let us help you address your reporting requirements.
Maine Nurse Licensing Procedures
Maine Nurse Practice Act Section 2105-A requires the Maine State Board of Nursing to follow fair notice and hearing procedures to ensure that you have due process protections to challenge your license discipline. Our attorneys can invoke your procedural protections to ensure your best disciplinary outcome. If you have already lost your hearing, let our attorneys take your administrative appeals and seek civil court review as appropriate.
Premier Maine Nursing License Defense
Retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Professional License Defense Team if you face Maine State Board of Nursing disciplinary charges related to your criminal issues. We successfully defend hundreds of nurses and other healthcare professionals in Maine and nationwide against disciplinary charges. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for our skilled and experienced representation.