MD · state guide

Maryland background screening law

How the courts here are organized

Maryland has two trial courts, and they are organized on different geographies. Article IV, § 20(a) of the Constitution provides that "There shall be a Circuit Court for each County and for Baltimore City", and § 1-501 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article describes what they hold: "The circuit courts are the highest common-law and equity courts of record exercising original jurisdiction within the State. Each has full common-law and equity powers and jurisdiction in all civil and criminal cases within its county, and all the additional powers and jurisdiction conferred by the Constitution and by law, except where by law jurisdiction has been limited or conferred exclusively upon another tribunal." Twenty-three counties and Baltimore City therefore give twenty-four circuit courts, and the courtroom a felony is decided in is named by the county.

The District Court is one court for the whole State and it is not organized by county. Section 1-602 divides the State into twelve districts "For the purposes of operation and administration of the District Court": District 1 is Baltimore City; District 2 is Dorchester, Wicomico, Somerset and Worcester; District 3 is Caroline, Talbot, Queen Anne’s, Kent and Cecil; District 4 is Charles, St. Mary’s and Calvert; District 5 is Prince George’s County; District 6 is Montgomery County; District 7 is Anne Arundel County; District 8 is Baltimore County; District 9 is Harford County; District 10 is Howard and Carroll counties; District 11 is Frederick and Washington counties; and District 12 is Allegany and Garrett counties. Six of the twelve districts hold more than one county, and the six that hold one county hold a county that happens to coincide with a district rather than a district that coincides with a county.

The two geographies are layered again by the Constitution, which groups the circuit courts into judicial circuits that match neither the counties nor the districts. Article IV, § 19 provides that "The State shall be divided into eight Judicial Circuits", with Baltimore City alone as the Eighth, Baltimore and Harford counties as the Third, Carroll, Howard and Anne Arundel as the Fifth, and Montgomery and Frederick as the Sixth. The circuit for the trial bench is therefore a different unit from the district for the same courthouse, and neither is a search unit.

Most criminal business starts in the District Court, and where it stays is set by statute. Section 4-301(b)(1) gives the District Court exclusive original jurisdiction over "Commission of a common–law or statutory misdemeanor regardless of the amount of money or value of the property involved", and § 4-302(a) provides that, apart from an enumerated list of offenses, "the District Court does not have jurisdiction to try a criminal case charging the commission of a felony". Where the two courts overlap is set out at § 4-302(d)(1), which gives concurrent jurisdiction "In which the penalty may be confinement for 3 years or more or a fine of $2,500 or more". For the offenses in that overlap the route out of the District Court is stated in the same subsection: a proper demand for a jury trial, an appeal as provided by law, or a charge arising out of the same circumstances that is within the circuit court’s jurisdiction. A single matter can therefore hold a District Court record and a circuit court record, and for a felony that is the ordinary case rather than the exception.

The public index is the Maryland Judiciary Case Search, and the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services names it as the route to a court disposition: "In order to obtain a copy of your court disposition you must contact the court that heard your case (i.e. The Circuit Court for Baltimore County) or go to the Maryland Judiciary Case Search Website". Case Search is closed to this environment. Direct requests return HTTP 403 with an interstitial reading "state.md.us Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker", and the reader proxy returns a CAPTCHA warning, so this page states that Case Search is the named route and does not describe what it covers, to whom, or at what fee. One statutory fact about it does hold and is worth carrying: § 10-304 provides that "The Maryland Judiciary Case Search may not in any way refer to the existence of specific records shielded in accordance with this subtitle."

The routing conclusion is that a Maryland court search has to name three things rather than one: the tier, because the District Court and the circuit court keep separate records of the same matter; the district, because a District Court file is shared across the counties in it; and the county, because the circuit court is the county court and the case number belongs to it. A county-by-county run captures the second and third of those and misses the first, and a run that treats the twelve districts as twelve counties will attribute a disposition to the wrong county six times out of twelve.

The repository is not a records office that a screening firm can order from, and the gate is statutory rather than administrative. Section 10-213(c)(1) makes the Central Repository "the official State repository for criminal history record information", and § 10-219(a) provides that "Except in accordance with applicable federal law and regulations, a criminal justice unit and the Central Repository may not disseminate criminal history record information." The Department’s page states the practical consequence in one line: "If you are seeking employment or to be licensed within Maryland, your employer or licensing agency must request the background record check." The party with standing to request is the employer, on its own authority, and the authorization is a property of the employer rather than of a vendor acting for it.

Approval to receive a Maryland record is granted by petition, and the petition is position-specific. The Private Party Petition form ITCD-74 states that State criminal history record information may be disseminated to "a nongovernmental employer, employment agency, membership association, landlord (including a public housing authority, or duly designated agent) licensed, chartered, or registered in any state, territory or possession of the United States, or in the District of Columbia upon convincingly demonstrating to CJIS that the subject of the requested criminal history record information could, have the capability to:" jeopardize the life or safety of an individual; cause significant loss or damage by illegally accessing or misusing the fiscal or non-fiscal assets of the employer, landlord, association or its members, or the public; or otherwise engage or participate in criminal conduct in violation of State, local, and federal law. The Department adds that "The separate Part 2 section of the Private Party Petition must be completed for each job title for which you are requesting a background history check", and the form repeats it: "This Application is only approved for specific positions/job titles". A petitioner that adds a job title without amending the petition is checking outside its authorization.

What an approved petitioner receives is a Maryland record and it stays with the petitioner. The Department’s page provides: "If approved under the Private Party Petition process, the agency is only entitled to Maryland (State) criminal history record information." The petition carries the certification that "any criminal history record information received is not to be disseminated (shared) with any other person and/or agency", and the form closes the route for the subject: "Individuals are prohibited from obtaining CHRI on themselves through the Private Party Petition process." The FAQ answer to whether a background check can be run on someone else is "No. The Maryland Security and Privacy Act and the Code of Maryland Annotated Regulations (COMAR) prohibit backgrounds checks being performed on citizens without proper authorization". There is no fee to become an authorized agency, and the Department’s page states the condition instead: "You must have legal or regulatory authority that authorizes your agency to receive federal and/or Maryland criminal history."

The report content differs by which check was run, and the Department says so plainly: "State of Maryland background checks disclose the crimes committed. FBI background checks do not disclose specific crimes committed." The fee schedule separates the two, with a full state and federal check at $30.00 by mail or $50.00 in person for authorized agencies and a state-only check at $18.00 or $38.00, all of which include a $20.00 in-person CJIS service fee where it applies, and the page records that "effective October 1, 2026 the FBI will be increasing its fee for fingerprint-based federal criminal history reports from twelve dollars ($12) to fifteen dollars ($15)". Fingerprints for a licensing or employment check must be submitted electronically: "All in-state applicant fingerprints submitted to CJIS for the purpose of licensing and/or employment background checks must be done electronically via approved live scan fingerprinting units." Timing is stated at "In most cases result of the state background check is mailed out in less than 10 working days from receipt of the initial approved application", with same-day service available "only in extreme, verifiable situations" and only in person.

A separate route exists for local government, and it was granted county by county rather than in one provision. Crim. Proc. §§ 10-231 to 10-236.3 authorize named counties and municipal departments to obtain State and federal records for their own employment and licensing decisions, including Anne Arundel, Baltimore County, Caroline, Carroll, Dorchester, Frederick County, Howard, Kent, Montgomery County for taxicab licenses, Prince George’s, Talbot, Washington, Wicomico, the City of Frederick police department and the Ocean City police department. One of them names a commercial route rather than an agency one: § 10-235 provides that the County Administrator in Washington County may request "a State and national criminal history records check from the Central Repository" or "a background investigation from an independent private investigation agency". Those provisions matter to a screening product because they are the reason a public employer in one of those counties can ask for something a private employer in the same county cannot, and because the authorization is a statutory hook rather than a general permission.

Section 10-228 closes a practice that screening products sometimes fall into without noticing it: "An employer or prospective employer may not require a person to inspect or challenge any criminal history record information relating to that person for the purpose of obtaining a copy of the person’s record to qualify for employment." A violation is a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 or imprisonment of up to six months or both for each violation. Getting the applicant to pull their own record is not a way around the petition route; it is the offense the section names.

The federal baseline

Federal law sets the floor here as it does everywhere. It is at 15 U.S.C. §1681 et seq., it binds the agency and the employer separately, and it does not vary by state. The FCRA article covers it section by section, including the seven-year limits, the salary threshold and the adverse action sequence, so that this page does not restate any of it.

What follows is only the overlay: what Maryland adds on top of that floor, and where it departs from it.

What Maryland law adds

Cities that go further than the state

• Montgomery County. Chapter 27, Article XII of the Montgomery County Code, "Fair Criminal Records Screening Standards", is a stricter rule than the State subtitle on four points. The employer floor is one employee, not fifteen: § 27-71(c) defines "Employer" as any person or entity "operating and doing business in the County that employs 1 or more persons in the County", including the County government and excluding the United States, the State and any other local government. The trigger is a conditional offer, not an interview: § 27-72(b) provides that an employer "must not, at any time before the extension of a conditional offer to the applicant" require the applicant to disclose an arrest or conviction record, "conduct a criminal record check on the applicant", or inquire of the applicant or others. Some records may not be asked about at any time: § 27-72(c) bars inquiry about an arrest that did not result in a conviction, a first conviction for trespass or disturbance of the peace, a misdemeanor where at least three years have passed since both the conviction and the end of any incarceration, records confidential under § 3-8A-27 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article, and records expunged under §§ 10-101 to 10-110 of the Criminal Procedure Article, and § 27-72(d) bars basing a hiring or promotion decision on any of them. The applicant also gets a state-law pre-adverse period: § 27-73(a) requires the employer, before rescinding a conditional offer on the basis of a record, to give the applicant a copy of any criminal record report, notify the applicant of the intention to rescind and the items relied on, and "delay rescinding the conditional offer for 7 days to permit the applicant to give the employer notice of inaccuracy". The article reaches promotions as well as hires, because "Applicant" is defined to include "a current employee who requests to be considered for a promotion". Exemptions at § 27-74 cover inquiries expressly authorized by federal, State or County law, the County Police Department, the County Fire and Rescue Service and the County Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, an employer that provides programs, services or direct care to minors or vulnerable adults, and an employer hiring for a position requiring a federal security clearance. A complaint goes to the Executive Director of the Office of Human Rights under § 27-75 and § 27-7. Montgomery County Code § 27-71(c) · Montgomery County Code § 27-72(b) · Montgomery County Code § 27-72(c) · Montgomery County Code § 27-73(a) · Montgomery County Code § 27-74 · Montgomery County Code § 27-75
• Baltimore City. Article 11, Subtitle 15 of the Baltimore City Code, "Fair Criminal-Record Screening Practices", enacted by Ordinance 14-221 and effective 13 August 2014, sets a lower employer floor and a stronger remedy than the State subtitle. "Covered employer" or "employer" means "any person that employs 10 or more full-time equivalent employees in the City of Baltimore" (§ 15-1(d)), and "Employment" is defined to include "contractual, temporary, seasonal, or contingent work" and "work through the services of a temporary or other employment agency" (§ 15-1(e)). The trigger is a conditional offer rather than an interview: § 15-6(b) provides that a covered employer "may not, at any time before a conditional offer of employment has been extended" require the applicant to disclose whether he or she "has a criminal record or otherwise has had criminal accusations brought against her or him", conduct a criminal-record check, or "otherwise make any inquiry of the applicant or others". The exceptions at § 15-7 are limited to an inquiry or action "required or expressly authorized by an applicable Federal, State, or City law or regulation" and to a facility or employer that "provides programs, services, or direct care to minors or to vulnerable adults". Enforcement is by complaint to the Baltimore Community Relations Commission under § 15-11(a), which is filed, investigated and heard in the same manner as an unlawful discriminatory employment practice under Article 4 of the City Code, and the Commission may award back pay for lost wages, reinstatement, compensatory damages that may include compensation for humiliation, embarrassment and emotional distress and expenses incurred in seeking other employment, and reasonable attorney’s fees. Section 15-16 makes a violation a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500 or imprisonment of up to 90 days or both for each offense. Two drafting points are worth carrying: "Conviction" is defined at § 15-1(c) as a sentence arising from a verdict or plea of guilty or nolo contendere, including a suspended sentence, and so does not reach a stet or a probation before judgment in the way the State definition does; and the definition section shows subsections (f) and (h) as repealed, with no surviving definition of "criminal record" in the subtitle. Baltimore City Code, Art. 11, § 15-1(d) · Baltimore City Code, Art. 11, § 15-6(b) · Baltimore City Code, Art. 11, § 15-7 · Baltimore City Code, Art. 11, § 15-11 · Baltimore City Code, Art. 11, § 15-16

Reporting limits at a glance

Every figure below is against Maryland law. Where a row says “federal only”, the state has set nothing and 15 U.S.C. §1681c governs.

Adverse action here

The federal sequence applies unchanged: pre-adverse action notice with a copy of the report and the summary of rights, a reasonable opportunity to dispute, then the adverse action notice with the agency’s details and a dispute route. The FCRA article sets it out in full.

Maryland adds a state notice duty of its own at the decision point. Section 14-1212(a) provides that whenever employment involving a consumer "is denied or the charge for credit or insurance is increased either wholly or partly because of information contained in a consumer report from a consumer reporting agency, the user of the consumer report shall so advise the consumer against whom the adverse action has been taken and supply the name and address of the consumer reporting agency making the report". The duty carries its own liability rule at (c): a person is not liable for a violation if he shows by a preponderance of the evidence that he maintained reasonable procedures to assure compliance.

A second state duty attaches earlier, when a public record item is reported rather than when a decision is made. Section 14-1210 requires a consumer reporting agency that furnishes a report for employment purposes and compiles public record information likely to have an adverse effect on the consumer’s ability to obtain employment to either notify the consumer at the time the information is reported, with the name and address of the person to whom it is being reported, or "Maintain strict procedures designed to insure that whenever public record information which is likely to have an adverse effect on a consumer’s ability to obtain employment is reported it is complete and up to date". The same section provides that items relating to "arrests, indictments, convictions, suits, tax liens, and outstanding judgments shall be considered up to date if the current public record status of the item at the time of the report is reported", which is the standard to hold a vendor to when a disposition is missing.

Section 14-1204 adds a pre-request disclosure for the investigative product. A person may not procure or cause to be prepared an investigative consumer report unless it is clearly and accurately disclosed to the consumer that such a report may be made, in a writing mailed or otherwise delivered "not later than three days after the date on which the report was first requested", and on written request the consumer is entitled to a complete and accurate disclosure of the nature and scope of the investigation, delivered "not later than five days after the date on which the request for the disclosure was received from the consumer or the report was first requested, whichever is the later".

In Montgomery County the pre-adverse period is longer than the federal reasonableness standard, and it is measured in days. Section 27-73(a) requires that before rescinding a conditional offer on the basis of an item in an arrest or conviction record the employer give the applicant a copy of any criminal record report, notify the applicant of the intention to rescind and the items that are the basis for it, and "delay rescinding the conditional offer for 7 days to permit the applicant to give the employer notice of inaccuracy of an item or items on which the intention to rescind the conditional offer is based". Subsection (b) requires written notice of the rescission itself. A county process that sends a federal pre-adverse letter and acts on the following business day has not given the seven days the ordinance names.

Two provisions change what a letter can ask for. Crim. Proc. § 10-109(a) provides that disclosure of an expunged charge "may not be required" by an employer, that a person "need not refer to or give information concerning an expunged charge" when answering about a charge that did not result in a conviction or a pardoned conviction, and that a refusal may not be the sole reason to discharge or refuse to hire. Crim. Proc. § 10-306(b)(1) does the same for shielded information. An employer that asks an applicant to explain a disposition that has been expunged or shielded is asking for something the applicant is entitled not to give, and § 10-228 makes it a misdemeanor to require the applicant to obtain their own record to qualify for the job.

Maryland has no state adverse-action duty for a criminal-history report considered alone: the criminal-history instruments are the screening rule in the Labor and Employment Article, which regulates the inquiry, and the reporting limits in the Commercial Law Article, which regulate the content. The state overlay on the federal sequence is therefore the § 14-1212(a) notice and the § 14-1210 public-record duty for the agency, the § 14-1204 investigative report disclosure, and in Montgomery County the seven-day delay at § 27-73(a).

Screening in Maryland: what your process needs

• Move the criminal record question to the first in-person interview or later. Lab. & Empl. § 3-1503(a) bars requiring the disclosure "at any time before the first in–person interview", and the prohibition is on requiring a disclosure rather than on asking a question on a form, so a pre-interview screening step is inside it whatever the form says.
• Do not describe Maryland as a conditional-offer state. The trigger is the interview under § 3-1503(b). Waiting for an offer is lawful and is stricter than the statute requires, but it is not what the statute says, and a client questionnaire that records Maryland as post-offer is recording the wrong date.
• Read the definition of criminal record before deciding what to report on the question. Section 3-1501(b) includes an arrest, the marking of a charge "stet" on the docket, a disposition of probation before judgment and a disposition of not criminally responsible, none of which is a conviction.
• Check the fifteen-employee floor against the whole workforce. Section 3-1501(c)(1) sets it at fifteen full-time employees, and § 3-1501(d) defines employment to include contractual, temporary, seasonal and contingent work and work through a temporary or other employment agency, so the count is not the payroll headcount alone.
• Apply the seven-year cut-off to convictions, not only to arrests. Com. Law § 14-1203(a)(5) names conviction and has no exception for it, which is the point on which the Maryland text departs from the federal provision it was modeled on. Check the § 14-1203(b) exemptions before treating a high-salary role as outside it.
• Do not check Maryland with a vendor that is not the employer of record for the position. The Department’s terms are that the employer or licensing agency must request the check, that an approved private party petitioner "is only entitled to Maryland (State) criminal history record information", and that approval runs per position or job title. A new job title means the petition has to be amended.
• Do not ask the applicant to pull their own record. Crim. Proc. § 10-228 makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to $5,000 or six months or both for each violation, for an employer or prospective employer to require a person to inspect or challenge their own criminal history record information to obtain a copy to qualify for employment.
• Expect a Maryland record to be a Maryland record. The Department distinguishes the two checks in its own words: "State of Maryland background checks disclose the crimes committed. FBI background checks do not disclose specific crimes committed." A federal check answers a different question and should not be presented as a Maryland one.
• Treat expunged and shielded records as a question the applicant need not answer. Sections 10-109(a) and 10-306(b)(1) bar requiring the disclosure, and § 10-109(a)(3) bars making a refusal the sole reason to discharge or refuse to hire.
• Do not tell a client that shielding removes a record. Crim. Proc. § 10-302(b)(2) leaves a shielded record "fully accessible by" an employer or licensing agency with a statutory or regulatory requirement or authorization to inquire into criminal background, and four further access categories survive at (b). The record leaves the public index under § 10-304 and not the authorized employer.
• Check Montgomery County separately for any position filled in the County. Chapter 27, Article XII reaches an employer with one or more employees in the County, moves the trigger to a conditional offer, bars inquiry at any time about non-conviction records and the other records listed at § 27-72(c), and requires a seven-day delay before rescinding an offer under § 27-73(a). The exemptions at § 27-74 are narrower than the State’s.
• Check Baltimore City separately for any position filled in the City. Article 11, Subtitle 15 reaches an employer with ten or more full-time equivalent employees, moves the trigger to a conditional offer, and exposes the employer to back pay, compensatory damages and attorney’s fees through the Community Relations Commission under § 15-11, with a criminal fine at § 15-16.
• Run a credit component only on a permitted basis. Lab. & Empl. § 3-711(b) bars using credit history to deny employment, discharge or set compensation, and § 3-711(c) permits it only after an offer or on a bona fide, substantially job-related purpose disclosed in writing. Subsection (e) protects an FCRA-authorized background investigation that does not involve credit information.
• Do not seek wage history, and do not accept it to justify a low offer. Section 3-304.2(d)(1)(ii) bars seeking or relying on it, and the exception at (d)(2) applies only after an initial offer and only to support a higher wage, with no unlawful pay differential resulting.
• Scope a court search by tier, district and county together. The circuit court is the county court under Article IV, § 20(a) and CJP § 1-501; the District Court is one statewide court in twelve districts under § 1-602, six of which hold more than one county; and Case Search is the index the Department names. A search that maps districts onto counties will misattribute a disposition six times out of twelve.

Related states

• Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania limits how a conviction may be used rather than whether it may be asked about: 18 Pa.C.S. § 9125 lets an employer consider a felony or a misdemeanor conviction only to the extent it relates to the applicant’s suitability for the position applied for, and requires a written notice when a decision not to hire rests in whole or in part on criminal history record information, which the Third Circuit read in January 2026 to reach a conviction the applicant volunteered. The State Police repository answers against Pennsylvania law enforcement records only and never federal ones, a Pennsylvania court docket sits outside the state criminal history statute altogether, and the docket number that identifies a case carries a county code where a judicial district number would be expected. Philadelphia then bans the inquiry, reaching research conducted for an employer by a third party, and sets a seven-year felony and four-year misdemeanor window measured from the underlying arrest or release from incarceration, whichever is later, with ten business days to answer a provisional decision.
• Delaware. Delaware bars the criminal record and credit question for public employers only, on an interview trigger rather than a conditional offer: 19 Del. C. § 711(h) makes it unlawful to inquire into or consider the criminal record, criminal history, credit history, or credit score of an applicant for employment during the initial application process, up to and including the first interview, and permits it after the first interview. There is no headcount threshold, because the covered entity is a public employer, and no state private-sector ban-the-box, no mini-FCRA and no state seven-year reporting limit. The criminal history itself sits in the State Bureau of Identification, which furnishes conviction data on a discretionary, fee-funded basis and prohibits onward dissemination.
• District of Columbia. Cannabis employment protections are enacted but unfunded: every operative section of Chapter 9B is marked "[Not Funded]" and the Code states the amendment "has not been implemented", leaving the 2015 rule that testing waits for a conditional offer as the only live cannabis provision. The criminal-record rule triggers on that same offer, bars arrest and non-conviction inquiries at every stage, and gives the applicant a post-adverse-action right to the records the employer procured. Credit information is banned by the Human Rights Act rather than a consumer-reporting statute, there is no employment lookback, and every conviction, felony and misdemeanor alike, is adjudicated in the one Superior Court, whose clerk is a record route alongside the FBI and the Metropolitan Police Department.

What we do

Maryland is a state where the timing rule and the content rule are in different articles and neither is where a vendor expects it. The timing rule is Lab. & Empl. § 3-1503, which bars requiring a disclosure about a criminal record or criminal accusations at any time before the first in-person interview, from fifteen employees up, and it defines a criminal record to include an arrest, a stet, probation before judgment and a disposition of not criminally responsible. The content rule is Com. Law § 14-1203(a)(5), which still bars a report of any arrest, indictment or conviction that antedates the report by more than seven years, with no conviction exception and with the federal high-salary carve-out attached, and the same title requires the agency that furnishes the report to register annually and post a bond of up to $1,000,000. The state criminal history sits in the Central Repository, which § 10-219(a) closes except as federal law allows and which the Department opens to a private petitioner only by position or job title and only for Maryland records that the petitioner may not share onward. Expungement and shielding put duties on the employer, and shielding still leaves a record fully accessible to the employer that has authority to check. Two local overlays are stricter than the State: Montgomery County from one employee, with a permanent bar on asking about non-conviction records and a seven-day pre-rescission period, and Baltimore City from ten, with compensatory damages and attorney’s fees through the Community Relations Commission. Our Maryland work keeps the interview, the offer and the report content apart, states whether a repository record or a court record answered the question, and checks the county and the city before it checks the state. If your current vendor reports a fifteen-year-old Maryland conviction, or asks on the application form and calls that ban-the-box, this is where that shows.

Sources

• Md. Code Ann., Lab. & Empl. § 3-1503, the prohibition on requiring disclosure of a criminal record before the first in-person interview
• Md. Code Ann., Lab. & Empl. § 3-1501, definitions, including the criminal record list at (b) and the fifteen-employee threshold at (c)(1)
• Md. Code Ann., Lab. & Empl. § 3-1502, exceptions and the non-preemption of more restrictive local law
• Md. Code Ann., Lab. & Empl. § 3-1505, enforcement and the civil penalty, and § 3-1504 on retaliation
• Md. Code Ann., Lab. & Empl. § 3-711, the credit report and credit history restriction, with the permitted bases at (c)
• Md. Code Ann., Lab. & Empl. § 3-304.2, wage range disclosure and the prohibition on seeking or relying on wage history
• Md. Code Ann., Com. Law § 14-1203, the reporting limits, including the seven-year rule for arrest, indictment and conviction records at (a)(5)
• Md. Code Ann., Com. Law § 14-1215, annual registration of a consumer reporting agency, and § 14-1217, the surety bond or irrevocable letter of credit
• Md. Code Ann., Com. Law § 14-1210, public record information in an employment report, and § 14-1212, the adverse action notice
• Md. Code Ann., Crim. Proc. § 10-109, the prohibition on requiring disclosure of an expunged charge
• Md. Code Ann., Crim. Proc. § 10-301, the shieldable conviction list, and § 10-302, the access that survives shielding, including (b)(2)
• Md. Code Ann., Crim. Proc. § 10-303, the three-year waiting period and the one-petition limit, and § 10-306, the employer duty
• Md. Code Ann., Crim. Proc. § 10-213 and § 10-219, the Central Repository and the restriction on dissemination, and § 10-228 on requiring a person to challenge their own record
• Md. Code Ann., Cts. & Jud. Proc. § 1-501 and § 1-602, the circuit courts and the twelve District Court districts, with CJP § 4-301 and § 4-302 on jurisdiction
• Md. Const. Art. IV, § 19 (the eight Judicial Circuits) and § 20 (a Circuit Court for each County and for Baltimore City)
• Md. Code Ann., Alco. Bev. & Cannabis § 36-1201, the immunity for listed persons acting under the medical cannabis title
• Chapter 183 of the 2026 Laws of Maryland (Senate Bill 439), adding State Gov. § 20-606(g) on fire and rescue public safety employees and medical cannabis, effective 1 October 2026
• Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, Background Checks, the fee schedule and the terms of access for a private employer
• Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, CJIS frequently asked questions, including the answers on requesting a check on another person and on report content
• Criminal Justice Information System, Form ITCD-74, Private Party Petition, the eligible-recipient categories and the certification against onward dissemination
• Maryland Judiciary Case Search, the public index the Department names as the route to a court disposition. Not searched: closed to this environment
• Montgomery County Code, Chapter 27, Article XII, Fair Criminal Record Screening Standards, §§ 27-71 to 27-75, read from the County’s code host
• Baltimore City Code, Article 11, Subtitle 15, Fair Criminal-Record Screening Practices, §§ 15-1 to 15-16, read from the City’s law library host
• Route note: mgaleg.maryland.gov serves its statute pages directly and through the r.jina.ai reader proxy, and every Maryland statute quotation on this page was read from that host. The host returns HTTP 200 with a "File Not Found" shell of roughly 60,000 bytes for a section that does not exist, so pages were validated by their text and not by their status code, and it renders the Code with en dashes where the Code uses hyphens and with curly quotation marks around defined terms, which is why the quotations carry those characters. dpscs.maryland.gov was reachable directly and through the proxy, and the chapter-law PDF was read through the proxy. Case Search is closed: HTTP 403 with a JavaScript and ad-blocker interstitial on direct request and a CAPTCHA warning through the proxy. codelibrary.amlegal.com is Cloudflare-blocked to direct requests and to the proxy on its overview pages, and the Montgomery County article was reached on a content node; codes.baltimorecity.gov renders through the proxy. No Maryland case law was read.

Last reviewed 23 September 2026. This page is checked on a quarterly cycle, because state screening law changes every legislative session. Nothing here is legal advice; see the terms of use.