Can Idaho employers ask about dismissed criminal convictions?

Question

In California, if a person is convicted of a crime, then later has the conviction dismissed under Penal Code section 1203.4, then Labor Code section 432.7 makes it illegal for employers to ask about such a dismissed conviction.

Therefore, if a person's only criminal conviction was dismissed per PC 1203.4, then on a non-government, non-law-enforcement employment application, when answering the question "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?", it would be legal and truthful to answer "No", since the question would itself be illegal if its intended scope included dismissals.

Question: Is something like that also true in Idaho? Given (only) a California conviction and later dismissal (PC 1203.4), would a person now seeking employment in Idaho be required to answer "Yes" to the question "Have you ever been convicted of a crime?"? The searches I tried that found the answer for California did not turn up anything for Idaho.

Answer 1

I do not believe that Idaho has such a law.

This is not the end of the analysis, however. It isn't clear that saying you do not have a conviction, when in fact, you have a conviction that was dismissed, is a permissible ground for an Idaho employer to, for example, justify the termination of your employment for an improper reasons (e.g. national origin) when the employer, after the fact, discovers that you have a conviction that you did not disclose because it was dismissed.

An Idaho court could easily rule that the non-disclosure of a conviction which was dismissed was not a material fact upon which an Idaho employer could justify terminating your employment when it was discovered after the fact. Likewise, fraud prosecutions generally require a misrepresentation to be made regarding a "material" fact, and not just any fact. In the same vein, while misstating your middle name might be a misrepresentation, it might not be an actionable misrepresentation of a material fact.