Request By:
Mr. Richard N. Belding
Deputy State Archivist and
Records Administrator
Kentucky Department for Libraries & Archives
300 Coffee Tree Road
P.O. Box 537
Frankfort, Kentucky 40602-0537
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; Greg Holmes, Assistant Attorney General
This is in response to your letter in which you seek clarification of the meaning of KRS 208.275(4)(6). This statute provides in pertinent part:
"(4) Upon the entry of an order to seal the records, the proceedings in the case shall be deemed never to have occurred, and all index references shall be deleted and the person and court may properly reply that no record exists with respect to such person upon any inquiry in the matter . . ."
"(6) Inspection of the records included in the order may thereafter be permitted by the court only upon petition by the person who is the subject of such records, and only to those persons named in such petition."
The question you raise concerns the applicability of this statute to records which are fifty, seventy-five or more years old when the subject of those records may well have died during the intervening years. At the outset it should be noted that KRS 208.275, which was to have been repealed in 1982 has been extended so that the effective repeal date is now July 15, 1984. Unless the General Assembly makes additional changes in Kentucky juvenile law, the applicable section after that date will be KRS 208A.190(4)(6) which provides:
"(4) Upon the entry of an order to seal the records, the proceedings in the case shall be deemed never to have occurred, and all index references shall be deleted and the person and court may properly reply that no record exists with respect to such person upon any inquiry in the matter."
"(6) Inspection of the records included in the order may thereafter be permitted by the court only upon petition by the person who is the subject of such records, and only to those persons named in such petition."
This identical provision is mandatory in requiring (a) that the records shall be sealed and the proceedings deemed never to have occurred, and (b) that only the person who is the subject of the proceedings may petition for the release of those records. The statute, therefore, requires that records may only be opened before the death of the person who is the subject of those records. After that death, there is no method provided by the statute for releasing the sealed records.
It is therefore the view of this office that after the death of the person who is the subject of sealed juvenile records, the records must remain permanently sealed.