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Hart v. State (8/15/2003) ap-1894
Hart v. State (8/15/2003) ap-1894
NOTICE
The text of this opinion can be corrected before the
opinion is published in the Pacific Reporter. Readers
are encouraged to bring typographical or other formal
errors to the attention of the Clerk of the Appellate
Courts:
303 K Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501
Fax: (907) 264-0878
E-mail: corrections@appellate.courts.state.ak.us
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF ALASKA
JUSTIN R. HART, )
) Court of Appeals No.
A-8305
Appellant, )
Trial Court No. 3KN-01-018 Cr
)
v. )
) O P I N
I O N
STATE OF ALASKA, )
)
Appellee. )
[No. 1894 August 15, 2003]
)
Appeal from the Superior Court, Third Judi
cial District, Kenai, Jonathan H. Link,
Judge.
Appearances: S. Joe Montague, Assistant
Public Defender, Kenai, and Barbara K. Brink,
Public Defender, Anchorage, for Appellant.
Kenneth M. Rosenstein, Assistant Attorney
General, Office of Special Prosecutions and
Appeals, Anchorage, and Gregg D. Renkes,
Attorney General, Juneau, for Appellee.
Before: Coats, Chief Judge, and Mannheimer
and Stewart, Judges.
MANNHEIMER, Judge.
Last year, in McCoy v. State, 59 P.3d 747, 750-751
(Alaska App. 2002), we were asked to decide whether a pre-
sentence investigator is required to obtain permission from the
superior court before writing a pre-sentence report that includes
information about the defendants informal involvement with the
juvenile justice system that is, contacts with the juvenile
justice system that did not result in a formal adjudication of
delinquency. We held that the answer was no. In the present
appeal, the defendant urges us to reconsider and reverse McCoy.
Justin R. Hart was convicted of third-degree assault.
His pre-sentence report included information pertaining to Harts
contacts with the juvenile justice system that did not lead to
formal adjudications of delinquency. (That is, the complaints
against him were handled informally under AS 47.12.060.) On
appeal, Hart argues that it was improper for his pre-sentence
report to include this information.
Alaska Delinquency Rule 27(a)(1) authorizes a pre-
sentence investigator who is preparing an adult pre-sentence
report to use the defendants juvenile records without first
obtaining case-specific permission from the superior court. In
McCoy, we concluded that Delinquency Rule 27(a)(1) in
particular, the phrase court records of a juvenile delinquency
proceeding encompassed the information in the juvenile probation
officers file, even when that information related to contacts
that never led to formal delinquency proceedings. Id. at 751.
In McCoy, we acknowledged that a related statute,
AS 47.12.300(d), apparently required the pre-sentence
investigator to obtain permission from the superior court before
using these records. But we held that this was a procedural
matter and that, therefore, the procedure specified in the
delinquency rule took precedence over the procedure specified in
the statute. Id. at 751.
In the present appeal, Hart argues that the McCoy
decision is flawed because we neglected to consider another
statute, AS 47.12.310(a), which declares that all agency records
pertaining to a minor are privileged and may not be disclosed ...
without a court order.
However, as we noted in our first opinion on rehearing
in McCoy, 59 P.3d at 752-53, the rule of non-disclosure codified
in AS 47.12.310(a) is riddled with exceptions. The most
pertinent of those exceptions are AS 47.12.310(b)(1), which
states that a minors records shall be disclosed to any federal,
state, or municipal law enforcement agency when those records are
pertinent to a specific investigation being conducted by that
agency, and AS 47.12.310(b)(2)(E), which states that a minors
records shall be disclosed to a law enforcement agency of this
state or another jurisdiction as may be necessary for the
protection, rehabilitation, or supervision of any minor or for
actions by that agency to protect the public safety.
These two exceptions seemingly authorize (indeed,
compel) disclosure of a persons juvenile records under the
circumstances presented here that is, when those records are
sought in connection with the preparation of a pre-sentence
report on that same person. Thus, AS 47.12.310 does not appear
to conflict with the result we reached in McCoy.
Moreover, it would not make much sense to construe AS
47.12.310 as being inconsistent with McCoy. It is difficult to
imagine a situation in which a superior court judge would deny
permission to a pre-sentence investigator who wanted to include
information about a defendants informal contacts with the
juvenile justice system. Although the sentencing judge might
ultimately conclude that these informal contacts were
unimportant, the judge would want to know about them. Thus,
judicial permission to inspect the defendants juvenile file would
be a foregone conclusion. This is apparently the rationale
behind Delinquency Rule 27(a)(1)s rule of automatic disclosure to
pre-sentence investigators.
Even assuming that the meaning of AS 47.12.310 was
reasonably debatable, this rationale would counsel against
construing the statute to require pre-sentence investigators to
repeatedly seek case-specific permission to view and rely on the
information in the defendants juvenile file. Because permission
would uniformly be granted, construing the statute in this
fashion would only add a needless procedural step to the
preparation of a pre-sentence report.
For these reasons, we reaffirm our decision in McCoy:
a probation officer who is preparing a pre-sentence report can
examine the defendants juvenile file and can include information
about the defendants informal contacts with the juvenile justice
system without first seeking case-specific permission from the
superior court.
The judgement of the superior court in Harts case is
AFFIRMED.
