Crimes of Moral Turpitude and Your Illinois Medical License

 Posted on June 20, 2022 in Medical License Defense

Our law firm has written a number of blog posts regarding the consequences that can occur with a physician’s medical license should they find themselves facing criminal charges. This is why any type of criminal accusation – even if it is a first offense – should trigger a phone call to a skilled Illinois medical license defense attorney since there is little doubt that the criminal charges will lead to some kind of action by the Illinois Medical Board.

Self-Reporting

Although your first instinct may be to try to keep the news of your arrest as quiet as possible, Illinois physicians have a responsibility to self-report certain types of arrests and/or convictions to the medical board. Medical facilities also have an obligation to report any information they learn about a physician affiliated with their organization who is facing certain charges or has been convicted. So, if the doctor fails to self-report, there is a high risk the hospital or medical facility they work for could, compounding an already potential dire situation with the medical board.

Crimes of Moral Turpitude

The majority of criminal convictions that could lead to a loss of medical license involve felony convictions. However, there are certain misdemeanor crimes that can also have the same result. These are referred to as “crimes of moral turpitude.”

While Illinois criminal justice statutes are very specific when it comes to classifying crimes as misdemeanors and felonies, the law is not so clear when it comes to a legal definition of what crimes should be deemed crimes of moral turpitude.

The phrase had been used dozens of times in Congressional records in the decades following the Civil War without ever assigning an actual legal definition to it. The closest the federal government has come to assigning a legal definition to crimes of moral turpitude was in the Immigration Act of 1917. Ironically, the only times crimes of moral turpitude actually come into play when a person has been charged with a crime is if they are involved in the United States immigration system or if they hold a medical or other type of professional license.

When the courts do have to decide if a crime falls under moral turpitude, the considerations are whether the crime itself involved fraud and/or whether the crime was so vile and depraved that it insults or shocks the public consciousness.

Some of the crimes of moral fortitude that could be charged as misdemeanors but could still result in the loss of your medical license include the following:

• Arson

• Child abuse

• Criminal threatening

• Domestic abuse

• Drug crimes

• Financial crimes, such as bribery, theft, or fraud,

• Kidnapping

• Perjury or other criminal act of personal dishonesty

• Sexual assault

Call an Illinois Professional License Defense Attorney

If you are facing criminal charges, do not ignore the potential loss of your medical license for failing to take the proper and legal steps the state of Illinois requires. Contact The Law Offices of Joseph J. Bogdan, Inc. at 630-310-1267 to schedule a free and confidential consultation with one of our professional Illinois medical license defense lawyers.

Sources:

https://www.harvard-jlpp.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/21/2021/01/Lerner-Moral-Turpitude.pdf

https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/171665