Request By:
Senator Pichard Weisenberger
Box 315
Mayfield, Kentucky 42066
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Robert L. Chenoweth, Acting Deputy Attorney General
You have asked the office of the Attorney General to provide a formal advisory opinion regarding the publishing of the names of juvenile offenders. You have presented two issues for our consideration:
1. Is there any duty on the part of the district judge or other members of his court to provide members of the press with the names of juvenile offenders upon request?
2. Does a district judge have the power to order all members of his court, as well as local law enforcement officials, not to provide the names of juvenile offenders to the news media?
Your questions involve the confidentiality of juvenile court proceedings and the publication of the identity of a juvenile offender. We believe juvenile court proceedings and records, including police records, may be released to the press under only very limited circumstances. The judge, the court's staff or the police should not provide the names of juvenile offenders to the press. We have written several prior opinions relative to this subject matter and a brief review of these opinions is believed to be in order to support the conclusion reached above. Before doing this, however, it is necessary to look at pertinent statutory provisions of our juvenile law.
KRS 208.020(1)(a) provides in part as follows:
"(1) The juvenile session of the district court of each county shall have exclusive jurisdiction in proceedings concerning any child living, or found within the county who has not reached his eighteenth birthday or of any person who at the time of committing a public offense was under the age of eighteen (18) years: (a) Who has committed a public offense, except a moving motor vehicle offense, involving a child sixteen (16) years of age or older."
Pursuant to KRS 208.030, a special record book is required to be kept by the juvenile court.
KRS 208.060 directs the manner in which the juvenile court shall conduct the adjudicative and dispositional hearings on juvenile matters. Subsection to reads as follows:
"All cases involving children brought before the court shall be granted a speedy hearing and shall be dealt with by the juvenile court at separate hearings and without a jury except that a trial by jury may be had in accordance with the provisions of KRS 208.020(3), (4) and (5). The hearings may be conducted in an informal manner. The general public shall be excluded and only the immediate families or quardians of the parties before the court, witnesser necessary for the prosecution and defense of the case, the probation worker with direct interest in the case, those persons enumerated under KRS 208.040, such persons admitted as the judge shall find have a direct interest in the case or in the work of the court and such other persons as agreed to by the child and his attorney may be admitted to the hearing. Witnesses shall be admitted to the hearing only for the duration of their testimony."
Additional important statutory provisions are found in KRS 208.340(1) and (2) which read:
"No probation officer, nor employe of a probation office, shall, without the consent of the district judge, sitting in juvenile session divulge or communicate to any persons other than the court, a member of the advisory board of the court, or a representative of the department, any information obtained pursuant to the discharge of his duties, nor shall any record of the actions of the probation officer be made public except by leave of the district judge: provided, that nothing in this subsection shall prohibit the probation officer from divulging or communicating such information to the court, to his colleagues or superiors in his own department, to another probation officer having a direct interest in the record or social history of the child, or to a representative of any public or private social agency, institution, hospital or church having a direct interest in the record or social history of the child.
"All police records regarding children who have not reached their eighteenth birthday shall not be opened to scruitiny by the public. However, such police records shall be made available to the family, quardian or legal representative of the child involved. Such records shall also be made available to the court, probation officers representatives of the department, or to a representative of any public or private social agency, institution, hospital or church having a direct interest in the record or social history of the child."
In 1958, OAG 41,778, copy attached, we looked at KRS 208.060 and concluded that a juvenile judge had the right to exclude a newspaper reporter from the actual hearing concerning a juvenile. In OAG 65-117, copy attached, this office considered whether the juvenile judge (then county judge) and the chief of police had the right to withhold the names of juveniles charged with public offenses from the publisher of a daily newspaper. Reference was made to the statutory provisions noted hereinabove. The opinion of this office was stated as follows:
"We think the statutes referred to, especially in the light of the nature and purpose of juvenile proceedings, manifest the clear intent of the Legislature that information and records relating to the prosecution of juveniles for public offenses be free from public scrutiny in keeping with the best interest of such juveniles. The release of such information into the public domain is placed in the sound discretion of the juvenile court. It is therefore our opinion that the county (juvenile) judge has the authority, and the police chief (and other police officers) both the authority and duty, to withhold the names of juveniles charged with public offenses."
In OAG 75-77, copy attached, we concluded that while there does not exist a specific isolated statute covering the confidentiality of juvenile court proceedings, "the juvenile judge has total control and authority over matters arising in juvenile court and the records generated therein." The opinion further concluded that "unless the court grants permission concerning the release of any information, including probation information, pertinent to a child who has come within the juvenile court's jurisdiction, neither the county court clerk (would be the circuit court clerk now), who is the clerk for the juvenile court, nor any supportive staff member of the juvenile court, should release on his or her own initiative any information obtained for or from the juvenile court to anyone not otherwise entitled by law or regulation to same."
The obtaining of the juvenile court disposition of a juvenile case was the issue raised in OAG 77-26, copy attached. This office concluded, based upon the sttutory provisions already noted, and reiterated the positions taken in prior opinions of the office, that "disclosure of the disposition of a juvenile's case may not be made to the public."
Lastly, in OAG 78-694, copy attached, we stated that "juvenile court procedures and records are, with limited exceptions, to be confidential in nature." We continued saying we believed "that the district court judge sitting in juvenile session has total jurisdiction and authority over matters arising in regard to a child before the juvenile court." We stated in answer to one question that the attorney for a juvenile, or the attorney's staff personnel, must have access to the child's juvenile court file regarding the matter about which a child's case is pending before the juvenile court so that the attorney can prepare an adequate defense for the child-client. We also stated in response to another question that the child and/or his or her parents had a right to see the child's juvenile court file.
In view of the prior opinions of this office and the relevant statutory provisions of juvenile law noted above, we are of the opinion there is certainly no duty on the part of the district judge or other staff members of the court to provide members of the press with the names of juvenile offenders upon request. In fact, in most instances, we believe the judge and the members of the court are obligated not to release the name of the juvenile before the court. Also, we believe the judge can prohibit the release of a juvenile's name and other information regarding the child. As for the law enforcement officers, we believe KRS 208.340(2) prohibits the release of police records reegarding children under 18 years of age which would include any deteption or custody (arrest) records. This would preclude police officers from volunteering the names of juveniles to the press for publication.
One last point needs to be made on this issue of the press obtaining the names of juvenile offenders. Our conclusion above addresses only the providing of the Juvenile's name or other juvenile court information to the press by the court or law enforcement officers. It is well understood that newspaper reporters and other news media people can and do often obtain the name of a juvenile offender simply by asking various witnesses or being in the right place at the right time, that is, routine reporting techniques. It is to be understood that there is no prohibition against publishing the name of a juvenile offender who has been taken into custody if that information has been lawfully obtained. There is no Kentucky statute, nor constitutionally could there be, making it a crime for a newspaper to publish the name of any youth charged as a juvenile offender. Such a sanction on publication of a juvenile's name was struck down in the recent United States Supreme Court case of
Smith v. Daily Mail Publishing Co., U.S., 61 L. Ed. 2d 399, 99 S. Ct. (1979). The reason, to the best of our knowledge, a juvenile offender's name has not usually been published in the newpapers or otherwise released by Kentucky news media has been due to a policy of the Kentucky Press Association and/or other self-imposed restraint. We again emphasize that truthful information that is or becomes lawfully in the public domain concerning a juvenile offender may be published in newspapers or transmitted in other forms to the public.
We trust you find the foregoing a satisfactory response to your inquiry. However, should further information be needed, please specify.