State court office will follow judge orders on youth court access, while legal conundrum around secrecy remains

By Anna Wolfe | Originally published by Mississippi Today

The state agency that oversees court operations in Mississippi has agreed to continue providing attorneys with case file access while an impending change in state law threatens youth court functions more broadly.

The Office of the State Public Defender requested a temporary restraining order last week to curb what it predicted would be catastrophic results from the sunsetting of a crucial law dealing with access to youth court information. The law is set to repeal Wednesday.  

But there was a disagreement about whether the Administrative Office of the Courts, the agency that the public defenders sued, had the power to prevent the lapse in access.

READ MORE: Mississippi youth court law puts families’ rights at risk, public defender lawsuit says

At issue is a state statute that places blanket confidentiality on youth courts across the state. The law that provides exceptions to that secrecy – which allow judicial officers, the child protection agency, providers and lawyers to communicate information – is set to repeal Wednesday. Without the exceptions, the laws left in place make it a misdemeanor to share any records involving children with any party. 

Had a youth court reform bill introduced and negotiated during the past legislative session passed, this legal conundrum could have been avoided. But on a passage deadline day, the House adjourned before taking up the bill.

Defense lawyers contend that the law change will threaten their ability to access records that allow them to defend their clients, such as parents who have had their children removed by Child Protection Services. In particular, they were concerned the state court administrative agency might interpret the law change to mean that it could no longer provide credentials to lawyers to log in to the youth court database and review case files. 

The Administrative Office of the Courts confirmed Friday that it would continue to follow court orders providing access following the repealer. But the office argued in court that it was unclear if it would still be receiving those orders from judges considering the law change.

State officials are still hopeful that Gov. Tate Reeves will call a special legislative session, formally requested by the public defender’s office and the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services, to rectify the problem.

The public defender’s office alleged in a federal civil rights complaint that Mississippi’s youth court law already results in unconstitutional outcomes. The impending law change, it claims, would only worsen the violations of due process rights that parents and children have been experiencing.

“The draconian policies and practices relating to confidentiality result in the unnecessary separation of families and the unnecessary detention of children,” states the lawsuit filed last week.

Youth courts in Mississippi’s 82 counties are required to house court filings in a statewide electronic database controlled by the Administrative Office of the Courts. There are various ways court officers, lawyers and agency workers gain permission to access the system. The state office is often responsible for providing the login credentials.

In many instances, and based on its interpretation of state law, the office will only provide the credentials under a youth court judge’s order.

During a five-hour hearing Friday, counsel for the public defender’s office and the Administrative Office of the Courts went back and forth, much of the time focused on the convoluted electronic case management and record retrieval process within youth courts. This hearing only pertained to the immediate issue of the repealer.

Elizabeth Rossi, a lawyer with the D.C.-based legal nonprofit Civil Rights Corps, argued that the Administrative Office of the Courts is the entity that “holds the key” for all youth court records. Civil Rights Corps, along with a similar organization called Public Justice, are representing the public defender’s office in its complaint.

Anna Morris, director of civil litigation for the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office representing the Administrative Office of the Courts, argued instead that the agency is akin to a custodian of a filing cabinet and does not have the authority to grant access to its contents.

With the exceptions to confidentiality set to lapse Wednesday, Morris said the office cannot guarantee that judges will continue ordering credentials to attorneys or even that courts will keep entering filings into the electronic database.

But Morris said the state office will continue to follow judges’ orders to provide access. U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate and the parties signed an agreed order Monday confirming this position and continuing the case until July 15.

The public defenders’ lawsuit ultimately goes a step further, arguing that access issues could be prevented more broadly if a court orders the Administrative Office of the Courts to provide youth court records access to all attorneys, regardless of a court order.

This article was originally published by Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Source: Original Article