The right of access in the federal system

Juvenile offenders of federal criminal law are primarily the responsibility of state juvenile court authorities. But the federal Juvenile Delinquency Act, originally passed in 1938 to remove minor suspects from the federal adult criminal system, allows federal delinquency proceedings if state courts are unwilling or unable to accept jurisdiction, the state has no adequate treatment plans or the juvenile is charged with a crime of violence or drug trafficking. The law applies to individuals charged before the age of 21 with a breach of federal criminal law occurring before they turned 18.

The act contains two confidentiality provisions, one of which prohibits the publication of the name and picture of any juvenile not prosecuted as an adult. The other provision contains guidelines for the time and place that a judge may convene a juvenile delinquency proceeding and authorizes private hearings in the judge’s chambers. 18 U.S.C. §§ 5032, 5038 (2012).

In cases interpreting the act, this statutory line of authority often intersects with the constitutional authority providing that criminal proceedings are presumptively open to the public. In a case involving juveniles charged with hate crimes, a newspaper moved to intervene for access to arraignments and other proceedings, as well as court records filed in connection with the proceeding. The alleged offenders and government opposed the request, arguing that the act mandates closed proceedings and records — an assertion the trial court accepted.

But the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston (1st Cir) held that the act could not be read to mandate closure. According to the court, Congress did not intend to deny judges the discretion to open or close their courtrooms when it built into the statute restrictions on who can receive juvenile court records and a ban on the release of a child’s photograph. Measures designed to protect confidentiality are to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, the court said.

Although it avoided answering the question, the court did acknowledge that “the Act implicates First Amendment concerns, and thus must be interpreted with the Supreme Court’s First Amendment jurisprudence in mind.” It thus looked to the case law spelling out the constitutional right of access to criminal courts and found “very instructive” the high court’s seminal decision in Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court striking down a mandatory closure rule. The court ultimately decided the case on statutory grounds but noted: “While the Globe case is not directly applicable here, the Court’s reasoning in that case strongly suggests that the district court’s preferred reading of the Act raises some serious First Amendment concerns.”

Nonetheless, the court described the assumption that the First Amendment applies to juvenile proceedings as “highly dubious” and questioned whether the high standard applicable in adult criminal cases should likewise apply in the juvenile context, where the exercise of judicial discretion in favor of closure “is not an exception to some general rule of openness, but the norm.” U.S. v. Three Juveniles, 61 F.3d 86, 88—92 (1st Cir. 1995); see also United States v. A.D., 28 F.3d 1353, 1360 (3d Cir. 1994) (interpreting the Act to permit judicial discretion to authorize access on a case-by-case basis).

The jurisprudence discussing access to federal juvenile delinquency records likewise rejects a presumption of access. In a case involving a disabled 14-year-old who threatened classmates with a loaded gun, a federal appellate court upheld a district court order sealing the record and a memorandum order denying a motion for a preliminary injunction. “Whether we apply a constitutional standard or a common law standard, the result is the same: Pulitzer’s interest in access to the records in this case clearly is outweighed by [the minor’s] privacy interest and the state’s interest in protecting minors from the public dissemination of hurtful information,” the court concluded. Webster Groves Sch. Dist. v. Pulitzer Publ’g Co., 898 F.2d 1371, 1378 (8th Cir. 1990).