Court OKs ex-prisoner firefighter ban
Recent felonies call into question ‘moral character’ of some ex-cons
Some former California prisoners who served on fire crews during their sentences were given a chance to become civilian firefighters by a recent state law. But others remain barred from firefighting, and a federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the state had legitimate reasons for excluding them.
Most fire departments in California require firefighters to be licensed as emergency medical technicians, or EMTs, who provide immediate care to people who are seriously injured. But state regulations since 2010, reported to be the strictest in the nation, deny EMT licenses to anyone who has ever been convicted of two felonies, or of a single felony in the past 10 years.
With more than 1,000 inmates serving on state crews fighting a growing wave of wildfires, lawmakers approved AB2187, effective in 2021, that exempted some ex-prisoners from the EMT ban. A prisoner who had taken part in firefighting, and has completed post-release probation, can ask a court to erase the record of conviction, a discretionary decision that would then allow the former prisoner to obtain an EMT license and become a firefighter.
But the 2010 regulations remain in effect and apply to former prisoners who have not gotten their convictions erased or are ineligible to do so. Two men in those categories challenged the regulations in court, but were rejected Thursday by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Noting that emergency medical technicians have access to prescription drugs, the court said the bans on convicted felons “are rationally related to fitness” for EMT licenses.
“Felonies, especially recent ones, reasonably call into question a person’s moral character,” the three-judge panel said, affirming a federal judge’s decision that upheld the regulations. “There are no more potentially vulnerable patients than those who are involved in the medical emergencies to which EMTs respond.”
The ruling was issued by Judges Ronald Gould, Mark Bennett and Ryan Nelson.
The state rules drew a broad challenge from the liberal American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP and the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation. Attorney Andrew Ward of the libertarian Institute for Justice, which represents the two former prisoners, said the regulations were “irrational” and should have been overturned.
“No one should be denied an opportunity because of an irrelevant criminal conviction,” Ward said. He could ask the full appeals court for a new hearing before a larger panel.
According to his court filing, one of the men was convicted of crimes as a juvenile, sent to prison and served on fire crews. After release, he was convicted of felonies in 2003, for carrying a dagger, and in 2005, for assault.
He has been crime-free for more than a decade and has served as a seasonal firefighter in recent years, currently with the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CalFire. But he is not eligible to apply for an EMT license under AB2187 because he worked on prison fire crews as a juvenile, not an adult.
The second man was a firefighter in adult prison, completed his sentence in 2018, and is a camp supervisor at the California Conservation Corps, the court filing said. He is eligible to seek a license under the new law but has not yet received one.
“The state uses prisoners as firefighters and then ... bars those same people from firefighting careers because of their criminal histories,” Ward said in his filing with the court. He said Thursday that the new law is “a step in the right direction” but doesn’t go nearly far enough..