A Vermont nursing practice can bring rich rewards, with a stable economy, a settled population, and a sophisticated healthcare system. You put a lot into your nursing education, and you’ve doubtless put a lot into establishing your nursing practice. Yet your criminal arrest, charge, and conviction can put all of your investment and anticipated future rewards at risk. The Vermont Board of Nursing may suspend or revoke your nursing license, ending your nursing practice in the state, if you don’t get the help you need with license defense. Whether your nursing practice is in Burlington, Essex, Essex Junction, South Burlington, Colchester, Rutland City, Bennington, Brattleboro, Randolph, Morrisville, Hartford, Milton, Williston, Middlebury, Springfield, or any other Vermont city or town, the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Professional License Defense Team is ready to defend your nursing license against Vermont Board of Nursing disciplinary charges related to your criminal arrest, charge, and conviction. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now to preserve and protect your Vermont Board of Nursing license.
Vermont Nurse Criminal Arrests
Vermont residents are not immune to crime and criminal charges, arrests, and convictions. Vermont crime statistics for the most recent year available show thousands of total criminal offenses for a wide variety of crimes against property, the person, and the public. Drunk driving and drug crimes are common in Vermont, as elsewhere, as are simple assaults. But Vermont also has large numbers of theft, trespass, domestic violence, and fraud crimes, as well as crimes of violence like murder, manslaughter, and simple or aggravated assault. Vermont nurses are not just among the victims of crime but also among the perpetrators. The Vermont Board of Nursing disciplines dozens of nurses every year, including for criminal issues. Criminal issues are the cause for one out of every ten nursing board disciplinary actions nationwide, implicating thousands of nurses. Male nurses commit more of those criminal offenses than female nurses, and licensed practical nurses commit more criminal offenses than registered nurses. But all nurses suffer discipline for criminal convictions, including drug possession, drunk driving, and theft, which are the most common crimes. Failing to report a criminal conviction or other similar disqualifying condition is the ground for discipline in 20% of nursing board cases. Let our skilled and experienced attorneys defend your Vermont Board of Nursing disciplinary charges related to your criminal issues.
Vermont Nurse Licensure Authority
Do not question the Vermont Board of Nursing’s authority to discipline your license for your criminal issues. Vermont Nurse Practice Act Section 1574 establishes the Vermont Board of Nursing to license and regulate nursing practice in the state. The Act’s Section 1584 prohibits the practice of nursing in the state without a Vermont Board of Nursing license. The same section refers to 3 Vermont Statutes Section 127 for the penalties for unlicensed nursing practice, including jail for up to one year and a fine of up to $5,000 for each offense. The Nurse Practice Act’s Section 1582 authorizes the Board of Nursing to discipline nurses on a wide range of grounds implicating criminal misconduct. The Board of Nursing has the full support of the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office of Professional Regulation to investigate and discipline nursing licenses. Vermont Board of Nursing Administrative Rule 13-2 expressly authorizes the Board to discipline your license up to suspension and revocation for unprofessional conduct as the Board determines. Let us help you defend and defeat your Vermont Board of Nursing disciplinary charges related to your criminal issues.
Vermont Nurse Licensure Requirements
Make no mistake: your criminal issues can affect your Vermont nursing license. The Vermont Nurse Practice Act sets forth the requirements for licensure, including the requisite education and examination. The Act’s Section 1582 then lists the grounds on which the Board of Nursing may refuse to grant or renew a license, or may discipline a licensee. Section 1582 incorporates 3 Vermont Statutes Section 129a, which expressly authorizes discipline for conviction of certain crimes. Multiple Vermont Board of Nursing administrative rules authorize the Board to conduct a criminal history background check on applicants for a new license or for license renewal, and in disciplinary proceedings. See, for example, Rule 6-2 relating to criminal background checks for LPN licensure. The general statute on professional licensing, 3 Vermont Statutes Section 129a, requires nurses and other professionals to report a criminal conviction to their licensing board within thirty days of the conviction or face discipline for failing to do so. Don’t expect to conceal your criminal issues. Instead, let us help you defend your license against disciplinary charges.
Vermont Nurse License Discipline for Crimes
As just indicated, 3 Vermont Statutes Section 129a authorizes discipline of a licensed Vermont professional, including nurses, for certain criminal convictions. Under the statute’s language, those convictions include crimes “related to the practice of the profession or conviction of a felony, whether or not related to the practice of the profession.” Section 129a further sets forth the factors that the Vermont Board of Nursing or its designated hearing officer must consider when deciding whether to discipline for a conviction. Those factors include:
- the nature and seriousness of the crime, meaning its danger and reprehensibility;
- the amount of time since the professional committed the crime, suggesting that the greater the passage of time, the less the concern;
- the relationship of the crime to the ability, capacity, and fitness of the professional to practice; and
- any evidence of the professional’s rehabilitation for the crime or treatment for the condition that caused or contributed to the crime.
Examples of Vermont Nurse Discipline Crimes
As just indicated, 3 Vermont Statutes Section 129a authorizes the Vermont Board of Nursing to discipline for practice-related crime or felony crime. Below are examples of each of those two categories of crime for which the Board of Nursing may suspend or revoke your license. Our skilled and experienced attorneys are ready to defend your Vermont Board of Nursing disciplinary charges relating to any of these crimes or other crimes, in the ways suggested below.
Vermont Nursing License Discipline for Felony Crimes
The Vermont Board of Nursing may pursue disciplinary charges against you for committing a felony crime. Felony crimes can include crimes against the person, like murder, manslaughter, simple assault, aggravated assault, robbery, false imprisonment, kidnapping, sex trafficking, and sexual assault. Felony crimes can also include crimes against property like arson and burglary, larceny, or other theft and embezzlement crimes involving property of substantial value. Felony crimes can also include certain drug possession, distribution, and manufacturing crimes. The Board of Nursing may discipline your license for these crimes even if they occurred outside the workplace, if the Board determines that they create a risk of patient or colleague harm in the workplace or subject the nursing profession to public mistrust and disgrace. Beware the risk to your license of criminal charges involving felony crimes. Let us help defend those charges.
Vermont Nursing License Discipline for Practice-Related Crimes
The Vermont Board of Nursing may also pursue disciplinary charges for practice-related crimes that are not felony crimes but are instead misdemeanors. Those misdemeanor crimes may include offenses that occur in the nursing facility, such as vandalism to hospital buildings or equipment, theft of hospital supplies or of patient property, simple assault to patients, colleagues, or others present in the facility, embezzlement of facility funds, insurance fraud, and falsification of patient records. Those misdemeanor crimes may also involve offenses occurring off the premises that suggest a risk to persons, property, or interests in the workplace. Misdemeanor convictions for simple assaults, writing bad checks, disorderly conduct, and even shoplifting could potentially indicate workplace risks to patient safety or property, or hospital interests. Misdemeanors for drunk driving or drug possession could potentially indicate substance abuse, dependency, or addiction, and associated impaired practice risks. Let us help defend against any disciplinary charges related to these issues.
Defending Vermont Nurse Discipline for Crimes
We may be able to defend your Vermont Board of Nursing disciplinary charges related to your criminal issues by showing that the criminal court set aside your conviction, an appellate court overturned it, or the governor pardoned it. We may alternatively be able to show that your conviction did not relate to nursing practice by creating any risk to any patient or person in the workplace, or to facility property or interests. Your conviction may not have been serious or of a nature that creates a safety or dishonesty risk. Your conviction may also have been long enough ago, or after you undertook remedial evaluation, treatment, and other measures, so that you have rehabilitated your character and fitness. Let us pursue these and other appropriate defenses for your best disciplinary outcome.
Differences Among Arrest, Charge, and Conviction
Keep in mind the difference between an arrest and a charge, on the one hand, and a criminal conviction, on the other hand. The Vermont Board of Nursing should not construe your arrest against you, although it may examine your underlying conduct that triggered the arrest. Officers make arrests unlawfully or erroneously, without discovering provable evidence of wrongdoing. The Vermont Board of Nursing should also not construe your criminal charge against you, although it may consider the underlying circumstances leading to the charge. Prosecutors abandon and courts dismiss charges when the evidence is absent or constitutional violations occur. The Vermont Board of Nursing, though, may construe your criminal conviction as presumptive evidence that you committed the charged wrong. We may nonetheless be able to show that your conviction did not relate to practice or was not for a felony, or that sufficient time has passed for you to take remedial measures in your rehabilitation.
Differences Among Specific Crime Charges
Under 3 Vermont Statutes Section 129a, the Vermont Board of Nursing should look most closely at your ability, capacity, and fitness for nursing practice, relative to your criminal conviction. The circumstances of your criminal misconduct may matter much more than the actual conviction. You may, for instance, have had an extraordinary one-time event contribute to your criminal misconduct. Unanticipated medication reactions, a relationship breakup, discovery of marital infidelity, crimes committed under a serious misunderstanding of the circumstances, and crimes committed in the passion of the moment or retaliation for sudden and serious wrongs may all be one-time events having nothing to do with your fitness for nursing practice. If, instead, your criminal issue had to do with a drug or alcohol event, we may be able to show that you have no substance abuse issue, that the event was a one-time extraordinary event that will not happen again, and that you have undergone your own private evaluation with any appropriate remedial treatment, education, or training already completed. Let us help make these proofs and distinctions.
Vermont Nurse Duty to Report Criminal Issues
You’ve seen above that 3 Vermont Statutes Section 129a requires nurses and other professionals to report a criminal conviction to the relevant licensing board within thirty days or face discipline for failing to do so. We can help you evaluate and comply with that reporting requirement so that you do not face credential fraud charges.
Vermont Nurse Licensing Procedures
To assert the above defenses, our attorneys can invoke your protective constitutional due process rights. Under 3 Vermont Statutes Section 129a, the Vermont Board of Nursing bears the burden of proving its disciplinary charges. The same provision permits the Board of Nursing to impose a sanction only after a hearing before the Board or a designated administrative official. We can invoke these rights, present your defense at the hearing, and challenge any adverse witnesses and evidence. If you have already lost your Board hearing, we can take your available appeals and pursue civil court review and relief.
Premier Vermont Nursing License Defense
Retain the LLF National Law Firm’s premier Professional License Defense Team for your best outcome to Vermont Board of Nursing disciplinary charges related to your criminal issues. Our attorneys successfully defend hundreds of nurses and other healthcare professionals in Vermont and nationwide against disciplinary charges. Call 888.535.3686 or complete this contact form now for our premier representation.