Discovery and Visitation in Connecticut's Juvenile Courts
| Publication year | 2021 |
| Pages | 297 |
65 CBJ 297. DISCOVERY AND VISITATION IN CONNECTICUT'S JUVENILE COURTS
A current issue in Connecticut concerns the availability of discovery and visitation orders in juvenile court proceedings. The limited statutory and PRACTICE BOOK provisions in this area do not define the scope of permissible discovery or visitation-The appellate courts have not provided definitive rules. Lacking guidance, the trial courts have rendered conflicting opinions. A cohesive analysis is needed in order to establish uniform procedures throughout the juvenile courts.
A.Statutes And Practice Book Provisions Specific To Juvenile Court
Statutory and PRACTICE BOOK provisions specific to the Superior Courts, Juvenile Matters allow for limited discovery of administrative and court files.
Any person who has received services from the Department of Children and Youth Services ("DCYS"), has a statutory right of access to the DCYS records regarding him or her.(fn1) Such records may contain evaluations of the parents or children by DCYS and other professionals, prior court documents and information on other family members. The attorney for the requesting person has an unqualified right of access, while the person himself may be denied access if the Commissioner of DCYS determines that disclosure would be contrary to that person's best interests. In contested proceedings, counsel for the parents and the minor child would be well advised to exercise this right of access as a discovery tool.
Access discussed here is limited to information regarding the person seeking disclosure. It does not allow for disclosure of information regarding other family members. This is an important distinction, as it is the policy of most DCYS offices to maintain separate files on parents and children. Thus, the child's attorney would have no right of access to the parent's file unless specific information therein related directly to the child.
Access to DCYS files concerning someone other than the party seeking disclosure may be obtained through Connecticut General Statutes § 17-47a. This statute provides that DCYS files are confidential, but subject to inspection upon court order. The statute gives no standards to apply in determining whether disclosure is appropriate.
The Appellate Court has stated that disclosure of DCYS files under § 17-47a is in the discretion of the trial court(fn2) In State v. Apostle,(fn3) a criminal defendant sought to obtain the DCYS file regarding the victim in order to impeach her testimony. The defendant claimed he would be deprived of his constitutional right to confront the complaining witness without access to her DCYS file. The Appellate Court held that the DCYS information on the victim's credibility was merely cumulative of her in-court testimony and upheld the denial of access to the DCYS file. Apostle did set some standards for determining whether a court should allow access to DCYS files. First, the trial court should make an in camera inspection of the requested file. The court then must determine whether the requesting party's rights outweigh the statutory confidentiality interest. Factors to be'considered are the nature of the confrontation or constitutional interest at stake, the nature of the material examined, the remoteness of that material, and the availability of other means of testing the victim's reliability (or asserting the movant's constitutional right).
Disclosure of DCYS records was also denied in the only other reported case involving § 17-47a. In Roman v. State Welfare Dept.,(fn4) the court denied a mother access to her child's DCYS file. The mother sought access only after a judgment committing the child to the custody of DCYS. The court stated that the mother was present at the trial and did not appeal, and, thus, characterized the mother's request as a mere "fishing expedition."(fn5)
In addition to DCYS file information, a party to a juvenile proceeding may be able to obtain information from an unrelated juvenile court file. Juvenile court files are confidential and not open to public inspection.(fn6) However, limited disclosure is allowed in certain prescribed situations (disclosure in regard to adoptions, disclosure to victim of delinquent act, disclosure to adult criminal court for sentencing) and to others upon court order. Outside of the prescribed situations, the statute sets no standards for determining when disclosure is appropriate. As is the situation with DCYS files, the only reported cases regarding court files have denied the movant access to the files.(fn7)
A parent was denied a transcript of juvenile court proceedings in the case of In re David F.(fn8) The parent wanted to use the juvenile transcript in a divorce case and claimed that the transcript would be of "great assistance" in his divorce case. The court denied his request saying that the movant's claim of "great assistance" was insufficient to breach the statutory confidentiality. Unfortunately, the court did not elucidate any standards for weighing a movant's interests against the general confidentiality interest.
In In re Anonymous,(fn9) the court held that the exceptions to confidentiality listed in the statute are exclusive, and that disclosure of juvenile court files is not allowed for any other reason. The court stated that since the legislature had already enumerated exceptions to the general rule of confidentiality, it was for the legislature, and not the courts, to expand the exceptions. Therefore, disclosure of a juvenile court file was denied in that case.
That case appears to be wrongly decided. The statute states that juvenile court files are open to inspection to any third party only upon order of the court. The statute goes on, in the following clause, to list certain exceptions where court information "shall be available" to certain persons. The two clauses deal with separate situations: disclosure as of right and disclosure in the discretion of the court.
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