If you, a family member or a friend is facing criminal charges, you’ll want to know what your rights and what the likely outcome will be. If you’re going to be prosecuted for an offence, you’ll be charged with either a misdemeanor or a felony. A felony is the more serious of the two and, as such, a felony conviction carries harsher punishments than a misdemeanor.
However, the punishment you’ll face if found guilty of a felony shouldn’t be your only concern. Being convicted of a felony can have far-reaching consequences, so you’ll need to consider exactly how a conviction will affect your future. To learn more, take a look at how and why a felony conviction can affect your future career:
Losing Your Job
Most felony convictions result in a mandatory prison term and many felonies carry a lengthy minimum sentence. This means that, if you’re currently employed, you’re highly likely to lose your job. After all, your employer won’t keep the position open for you if you’re going to be serving months or even years in prison.
Professional Licensing
If you’ve chosen a career which requires you to hold a particular license, such as nursing or accounting, a felony may make you ineligible to hold the relevant license. As a result, your future career could be in jeopardy. If the licensing board feels your conviction is incompatible with the character that’s expected of someone in your profession, your license will be revoked.
Although you may be able to reapply for licensure in the future, there is a chance that having a felony conviction will prevent you from ever working in your chosen field again.
Getting a Job
Even once you’ve completed your sentence and paid your debt to society, finding a job isn’t easy if you have a felony conviction on your record. Most employers will ask you to disclose any convictions and run background checks, so there’s no way to prevent them from finding out about your past. Unfortunately, few employers are willing to offer offenders a job, which means it can be hard to find reliable work or generate an income following a felony conviction.
Fighting a Felony Charge
As you can see, a felony conviction has a significant impact on your career and job opportunities. However, this isn’t the only way a felony can affect you. To learn more about the consequences of a felony conviction, take a look at this blog post by campolidefense.com.
Due to the impact a felony conviction can have, it’s vital to seek legal advice at the earliest opportunity if you find yourself being charged with this type of offence. Depending on the circumstances, your criminal defense lawyer may be able to have the charges against you dropped or reduced to a misdemeanor, which could lessen the impact the conviction will have.
Alternatively, your criminal defense attorney will be able to assess the evidence against you and help you decide how to plead. If you proceed to trial, being represented by a skilled criminal defense lawyer will increase your chances of securing a favorable outcome.