Senator drops plan to let KY juvenile justice agency reveal youths’ private info

Citing “pushback,” a state senator has dropped language from his bill that would have allowed the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice to publicly disclose confidential and embarrassing records it held on youths who were housed in state custody if they later sued over the conditions of their confinement.

The Herald-Leader first reported on the language this week.

Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, told the House Committee on Families and Children at a hearing Wednesday that he agreed to a committee substitute that removed a sentence allowing the state to disclose confidential records from youths’ juvenile court and medical histories as part of the Department of Juvenile Justice’s legal defense.

By filing a suit against the department that “publicly reveals or causes to be revealed any significant part of the confidential matter,” plaintiffs were assumed to have waived their right to confidentiality, allowing the state to publicly respond with other private information it might have on file about them, the bill had stated.

“This was in the case of civil suits,” Carroll explained to the committee.

“There was some pushback on this, and we decided to go ahead and delete that provision. from the bill,” he said.

Senate Bill 242 advances to the full House following its approval by the committee Wednesday.

As the Herald-Leader has reported, two young women are suing the Department of Juvenile Justice in federal court, saying they and other girls were abused, neglected, humiliated and deprived of health care, education and basic hygiene in 2022 at the state-run Adair Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Columbia.

The Department of Juvenile Justice has tried to bully the women by filing motions in state court to unseal their juvenile court records, said the women’s attorney, Laura Landenwich of Louisville.

Instead, the judge overseeing the federal lawsuit has signed a protective order at the women’s request, requiring that such confidential information be filed with the court under seal, outside of public view.

“What our clients did or didn’t do to get into Adair County has nothing to do with how they were treated inside that facility,” Landenwich told the newspaper on Monday. “This is truly an attempt to smear these girls publicly in order to try to dampen the public outrage against the DJJ.”

The Department of Juvenile Justice told the Herald-Leader the language in the bill would let the agency present all of the facts necessary to defend itself from accusations made in court.

Overall, much of the 52-page bill addresses the need for better mental health services for youths in the custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice, including plans to open a 16-bed treatment center in Louisville on the grounds of Central State Hospital. It also includes plans for two new girls-only detention centers.

Kentucky’s juvenile justice commissioner, Vicki Reed, resigned Jan. 1 after a long series of problems at her agency’s facilities, including neglect, excessive force, riots, assaults, escapes and litigation by former employees and youths it once held. Gov. Andy Beshear recently named her successor, former state prison warden Randy White.

This story was originally published March 27, 2024 at 3:37 PM.

John Cheves

Lexington Herald-Leader

(859) 334-0802

John Cheves is a government accountability reporter at the Lexington Herald-Leader. He joined the newspaper in 1997 and previously worked in its Washington and Frankfort bureaus and covered the courthouse beat. Support my work with a digital subscription