Calling Lynn Greer/Background Checks?

The Certificate of Need Board has again reared its ugly head in the Shoals. It's taken five months for the board to okay a 20 unit transfer of psychiatric beds between ECM and Shoals Hospitals. If the board were no longer extant, we're sure some body would be required to approve the small transfer, but it wouldn't have taken from April until August. 

Where's Lynn Greer, you know, the state representative from Rogersville who promised to have the board either abolished or at least remodeled to better serve the state in the 21st Century?

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We've had several questions on background checks, both generalized and specifically relating to UNA. All large companies employ agencies to do background checks. An institution like UNA may pay for these individually, but probably pays a company a monthly fee for unlimited checks due to the volume of employee turnover.

How do these checks work? Arrests as well as outcomes are usually included. Each prospective employee would be evaluated individually. A shoplifting conviction might prevent someone from securing a job as cashier in the cafeteria, but not bar someone from working in groundskeeping.

Why did Jane Doe's attorneys know about David Dickerson's arrests for assault and rape and UNA didn't? Now there's an interesting question. UNA should have known if they did any kind of background check. Miss Doe may have paid for a check on Dickerson before she saw an attorney, or the attorneys could have gone on a fishing expedition. Remember, the attorneys probably don't employ background checks that often, but common sense told them that a then 43 year-old man who had allegedly committed assault and rape probably had previous problems with women.

Would the background check tell what happened with the charges against Dickerson? Certainly if he'd been convicted, that would have shown on any check. Not all states have grand juries, but it's possible a grand jury failed to indict him or that he pleaded to much lesser charges. He could have pleaded to a misdemeanor assault and received probation, never doing any jail time. It would be interesting to see the actual documentation...and we're working on getting it.

In short, if Jane Doe and her attorneys found David Dickerson's previous charges, UNA certainly should have. That brings us to another reader question: Would UNA have hired Dickerson knowing his background? We're pretty sure the answer is “No!” We can't imagine any university of other school taking the chance even if Dickerson swore on the proverbial stack of Bibles that he was innocent.

Remember, the university let four students travel alone with Dickerson to the Florida conference/sales meeting. That brings us to a question of our own. We have to ask just who at UNA thought a single, 43 year-old man was adequate chaperon for two young men and two young women? Sure, college students are supposed to be adults. We all know that they always act like adults, right? Uh...no, they don't, and it would seem in this case, rape charges aside, David Dickerson didn't either.

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