That's called a lie. Similar to the it wasn't a good fit one, most of the time there's another reason, maybe you weren't not that great of a programmer, or they didn't like your editor or tools.

From 10 years of experience working for a lot of companies and starting and failing some companies I can tell you, if they like you, they'll hire you even if you're an ex-convict. At a company I worked at we hired a guy with a recent conviction (battery). Great programmer nonetheless and he said was trying to get his shit together. There was something weird about him, like he smoked crack in the morning... But hey, he wrote good code and was never a problem, in fact he was the first one in the office.