Expungment of Juvenile Records Held by Executive Branch is Limited to the Order of Expungment

In the matter of the Welfare of J.J.P., Minn.S.Ct., 5/22/2013.  This is a companion case to that of M.D.T., the adult expungment opinion.  The focus here is expungment of juvenile records.  J.J.P. petitioned the district court to expunge his executive branch records under the juvenile code’s expungment provision, Minn.Stat. 260B.198, subd. 6.  The district court denied the petition but the court of appeals reversed.  The court of appeals said that this statute created broad authority to expunge all juvenile delinquency records held by executive branch agencies, and that rather than the balancing test contained in chapter 609A the guidelines in the delinquency rules which address the imposition of a disposition in a delinquency case applied.

Justice Dietzen concludes that this juvenile statute authorizes the court only to expunge executive branch records of the order adjudicating the juvenile delinquent.  This statute says:

Except when legal custody is transferred under the provisions of subdivision 1, clause (4), the court may expunge the adjudication of delinquency at any time that it deems advisable.

There are a lot of statutes that pertain to the creation, maintenance, distribution and destruction of juvenile records among the judicial and executive branches of government, and there are a lot of different “records” that go into the pile.  Only one among these many different “records” is the actual order adjudicating a juvenile delinquent.  So, borrowing Justice Stras’s dictionary, Justice Dietzen tells us what the definition of “adjudication” is.  He employs as narrow a definition as can be – the actual order of adjudication.  In doing so, the court authorizes executive branch agencies to keep all of the paperwork in the run up to that actual order.  Things like the juvenile petition, motions, arrest history, on and on, can stay in the file cabinet. 

J.J.P. wanted this expungment so that the Department of Human Services could not disqualify him from direct patient contact, thereby preventing him from becoming a paramedic.  The court says that expungment of the order of delinquency accomplishes this goal because DHS must have that order in order to disqualify.  The concurrence by Justice Paul Anderson in which Justice Page joins  – takes issue with this rosy picture.  And, points out that if the order of adjudication is expunged then all these executive branches have no statutory authority to keep any of the file.  The concurrence also proclaims that the juvenile expungment provision empowers actions to seal records more expansive than just the order, and that limiting expungment to the order of adjudication is an illusory remedy.  Justice Wright concurred in that particular conclusion about the scope of the expungment authority.

The court then turns to the phrase “deems advisable.”  The court rejects both approaches from the lower courts:  Chapter 609A balancing criteria, and juvenile disposition rules.  Instead, the court adopts the different balancing test in exercising a court’s inherent authority to expunge records.