Will a Military Conviction Show Up on a Background Check?

You’re also going to have a federal felony record. A court-martial conviction is a federal conviction. It’s a felony conviction if it’s a general court-martial. It’s going to show up on background checks, no more government jobs, no more contracting jobs, probably going to lose your security clearance in most cases.

You might not be able to get a professional license. In some states that includes a nursing license, a law license, even a plumber’s license. That record’s going to follow you forever. You cannot expunge a federal felony conviction if it’s from a court-martial.

Firearms. This is a big thing for a lot of our clients. If you’re convicted of domestic violence or felony level convictions, you lose the right to possess firearms. That means you can’t possess them, own them, shoot them, have them in your house.

And if you get caught with one, you’re looking at another federal charge. It’s called felon in possession. You can get put back in jail for a couple more years just for having a gun in your possession or using a gun. That shuts down law enforcement jobs, anything close to the military.

You can’t even be a security guard or a mall cop. No concealed carry permits, no shooting and hunting with dad and your brothers and the friends. Done. Sex offender registration.

If you’re convicted of certain sex offenses in the military, you’re going to have to register. You’re going to be in the public federal database that’s going to trickle out to the state databases. You’re going to have to register everywhere you go and get permission to travel, to live certain places, and to pretty much do anything. Your photo, your address is going to be on the internet in most states.

That’s going to limit your employability. You’re going to be very limited and very restricted with where you can live, where you can even go. Some places you can’t go to a movie theater, a park, a pool, a beach. And you can’t live, in many cases, within a thousand feet of these places.

So, good luck trying to find a house or apartment in a decent neighborhood in which a sex offender can live. In most places, they won’t even let you live there even if it isn’t close to any of these establishments. Most states also restrict where you can work. You cannot be around anyone under 18, which includes going to church in many cases.

You can’t own a phone or a computer, or if you do, it’s restricted. You can’t travel without getting permission. And when you do travel, you have to register in most cases with the local jurisdiction. If you don’t, they can come back after you and charge you with a federal offense or a state offense for failing to register or failing to report.

That’s how most people that are convicted sex offenders end up back in jail. It’s because of a small technical violation. Like I had a client a couple years ago, he went with his brother to a family picnic after getting out of jail at a beach in Georgia. His parole officer found out.

Boom, straight back to jail. He violated parole. He violated the Georgia state sex offender rules. So, if you’re looking to do an online business, understand this, you often cannot have internet access unless it’s monitored by a parole officer or some government official.