Local judge favors open court pilot program

Local judge favors open court pilot program
Rep Moore's bill would allow public access to family court

By BOB WHITE
bwhite@thenewsenterprise.com
When 9th Circuit Judge M. Brent Hall came to Hardin County's second Family Court bench, he opposed public access to the dependency, neglect and abuse docket, or any other proceedings involving juveniles.

That was two years ago. Then, he said he worried juveniles could be negatively impacted by their, often sensitive, family matters becoming subject to public scrutiny.

Hall’s view from the bench has changed from the stance he took as an attorney working in Family Court.

Hall said that since taking the bench, he has learned that lawmakers and the public will remain ignorant of what problems exist within Kentucky’s child protection and permanency system so long as it remains behind closed doors.

Hall now supports the opening of Family Court to public eyes and ears so much that he’s requested his division participate in a pilot program to do just that under House Bill 407.

Sponsored by 26th District Representative Tim Moore, HB 407 proposes a pilot to allow limited public access to family courts in seven of Kentucky’s judicial circuits.

Moore said he proposed the bill after several people with young relatives being processed within the Family Court system indicated to him “that they’d been shut out of the process.”

“I understand that we need balance in the system, but I also understand that families need information as they and their children try to go through family court,” Moore said in a message. “I’m trying to do what's best for Kentucky kids and their families. That's what it's all about.”

Opening family courts could impact many throughout Kentucky.
According to data provided by Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services in late 2009, about 7,000 children annually are cared for by the state or foster families after being removed from their biological parents for various reasons.

Hall said, however, that those state statistics do not reflect another 10,000 Kentucky children being cared for by relatives – a practice known as kinship care – after being removed from their biological parents.

The data shows that about 17,000 Kentucky children have been processed by family court systems in just Kentucky in recent years.

The justice system’s involvement in family lives is costly, according to Hall, who said many people do not, and cannot understand just how costly it can be for the state to raise children removed from families.

Daily costs, depending on the services a child needs, range between $30 and $200 per child, Hall said.

Other aspects of family court, such as the adversarial stances different agencies take on — laying blame on their counterparts — and the justice system’s inability to access pertinent data and statistics that’s available to social workers and the agencies in charge of them, also could be made apparent to the public by opening family courts.

An open door to juvenile proceedings in family courts may shed light on disturbing problems, Hall said, but it also could lend itself to finding solutions that, in the end, would help Kentucky children and their families get what they need to lead productive and healthy lives.

Family courts are currently off limits to news media and all others not party to a specific case.

The bill passed the House March 1 with an 87-10 vote. It’s now in the Senate Judiciary Committee for review.

A summary of HB 407 as sponsored by Representatives T. Moore, S. Westrom and T. Burch:

An act relating to the Court of Justice.
Create new sections of KRS Chapter 21A relating to the Supreme Court to request the Supreme Court to create a pilot project for a limited opening of courts in three to seven jurisdictions when handling dependency, needy, neglect, and abuse cases involving children and termination of parental rights, set parameters, and require reporting to the Legislative Research Commission and the Interim Joint Committees on Health and Welfare and Judiciary; create a new section of KRS Chapter 610 relating to juvenile procedure to permit pilot project courts to open proceedings which otherwise would be closed.


Bob White can be reached at (270) 505-1750.


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