Questions surround law restricting public access to juvenile court records
A new law that would restrict access to court records of teens charged with felonies was scheduled to kick in Jan. 1. But now there are questions as to whether it will go into effect.
An advisory committee last month recommended that the Minnesota Supreme Court reject the law.
That came as a surprise to Mark Haase, vice president of the nonprofit Council on Crime and Justice. His group worked on the legislation for about five years.
Haase says it's a myth that a juvenile delinquency record won't interfere with a young person's future.
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In Minnesota, a 16 or 17 year-old charged with a felony has a public hearing for that charge, and all of the records related to it are public.
"These records are accessible remotely. They're accessible at the courthouse," Haase said. "Employers, landlords and data harvesters are able to access these records that most people think are private. They think somebody who is still a juvenile has a chance to make a mistake or even do something bad and it won't follow them forever. But that's not the case anymore."
Juvenile justice advocates say companies collect and then sell the data to landlords and employers. The records can prevent individuals from securing jobs, housing, even a college education.
Haase and others thought they won a hard-fought victory this spring when the Legislature passed a law that would limit access to the electronic records for juveniles charged with all but the most serious crimes.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman backs the new law. He said it's a compromise that is fair to both victims and juveniles.
"The compromise basically is that the information that should be made public is public, but not electronically," Freeman said.
Freeman notes that the hearings themselves would still be open.
But an advisory committee to the Minnesota Supreme Court said making such changes would present an administrative burden to the judicial branch. The panel also said "decisions regarding access to court records should remain the province of the courts," not the state Legislature.
The high court is expected to issue an opinion on the matter.