Sealed Juvenile Records

[jillybob]

If an adult has a sealed juvenile record, will their prints still be in the system? Obviously, if you had a court order, you could open the sealed record, but I'm talking about just a random print check. Basically, I'm trying to determine if somebody with a sealed juvenile record could be buried as a John Doe, or if a routine check of the body's prints would lead investigators to the true identity of the deceased.

I'm also curious to know if the sharing of this information between law enforcement agencies would be affected if the person in question is found in a state other than the one in which they have the sealed juvenile record.

Thanks in advance!

[Priya]

My instinct, based on vast Law & Order knowledge, says that if the crime was committed recently (past five years or so) their prints would be in the system.

That said, a quick google search showed that state to state laws differ (though I couldn't find a direct answer to your specific question) in regards to juvenile records.

My advice would be: As well as seeing what other people post here, I'd call up a criminal defense attorney's office (their paralegals should know the answer to this) in the state where your script takes place. I've found that just saying you're a writer doing research gets you into a lot of doors...

Good luck, sorry I couldn't be more help! And, if you find out the answer, I'd love to know!

[Pull Back Reveal]

Priya's right, it varies state to state. A few things to note that might not be intuitive: Juvenile records may be sealed only if the offense stays in juvenile court system (some felonies lead to juvenile charged as an adult; those records can't be sealed the same way). In California, juvenile cases can be sealed upon petitioning the court and meeting certain conditions (passage of time, failure to commit another crime) -- it's not automatic. Some juvenile offenses, even when offener is not charged as an adult, cannot be sealed:

Certain juvenile records are not sealable. These include the more serious crimes such as murder, arson, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, certain gun charges, car jacking and all violent felonies. The general rule is that if you were convicted of an offense listed in Section 707(b) of the Welfare and Institutions Code and you were 14 years of age or older at time of the conviction then your juvenile record cannot be sealed.

It's not entirely clear, but it sounds like ALL records (including those kept by police, which would include fingerprints) disappear when a juvenile record is sealed.

However, under certain circumstances the records can become unsealed, so they must not be destroyed but are kept elsewhere (under seal).

You might find this interesting -- sealed records of motor vehicle offenses can be examined by insurance companies to set car insurance rates; if the guy whose records were sealed sues someoone for defamation, the defendant can examine the records to mount a defense; and the court may examine sealed juvie records to determine sentencing in "three strikes" cases.

It's never as easy getting records across jurisdictional boundaries, so it would probably be harder to look behind a seal in a different state, but that's probably more logistics and stumbling blocks than policy.

[jillybob]

Thanks for the insights! I'd done a brief Google for info and found some conflicting information, so I figured before I lost my mind trying to sort through all the crap on the internet, I'd come here. Of course, once I'd posted, I couldn't actually wait for the answer (because I'm just that much of a spaz) and ended up doing an exhaustive search on my own. But your comments were still quite helpful.

I'm fortunate in that the script I'm working on is set in a state which just happens to make legal information like this very available online, in easily digestible form. That said, I've discovered that the policies on sealing and expunging do vary quite widely from state to state, so I'm free to pick the state whose methods best suit my needs and say the juvenile offense occurred there. 'Cause, you know, people move and stuff.

There's also considerable difference in some states between sealed records and expunged records, and each terms means something slightly different from state to state. Some states merely close access to records, whereas others actually physically destroy them. In some states, a name search will turn up just a message that a file has been expunged; in other states, the name brings up nothing at all. A problem I ran into was that, for plot purposes, I need the prints not to be on record in the electronic database, but I do need some record to exist somewhere, so that once my detectives have a name, a search will eventually lead them to the right record. But I've found both a state policy and an additional plot point that will address that.

My main concern is to keep it as clean and uncomplicated as possible to get all of the legal aspects on the page, because the crime itself is convoluted enough that I don't want to have to have a lot of extra exposition just to deal with the records issue. Plus this for a TV spec, and the mystery is really the B plot, so everything has to get revealed, explained, resolved, etc. in a fairly tight amount of pages.

I swear, my next writing project is going to be a nice short children's book about a panda at the zoo. Of course, knowing me, I'll probably decide that for authenticity's sake, I really should research US-China diplomatic relations and the history of the panda and its signifiance to the Chinese people.

*sigh*

Thanks again, Priya and Pull Back, for the help!

[Pull Back Reveal]

I swear, my next writing project is going to be a nice short children's book about a panda at the zoo. Of course, knowing me, I'll probably decide that for authenticity's sake, I really should research US-China diplomatic relations and the history of the panda and its signifiance to the Chinese people.

Don't leave out ping-pong diplomacy!

Thanks for your update.

One thing you might keep in mind is that, even in states where the files (and records of the files) are destroyed, once they've been duplicated to other agencies or institutions, those physical copies probably remain. Sealing or expunging orders only affect courts and police under the jurisdiction of the court doing the sealing. So that's a way for a hard copy in a file someplace to get out into the world for your investigators to track down.