Child advocate columns, May 1, 2009

Office of the Child Advocate
3312 Northside Drive, Suite D-250 Macon, Georgia 31210
478-757-2661 or 1-800-254-2064 www.gachildadvocate.org
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Open Juvenile Courts: Balancing the Child's Privacy against the Public's Right to Access
By: Tom C. Rawlings, Director
A major change came to Georgia's juvenile courts during the final days of the 2009 legislative session. While public and media interest was focused on taxes and transportation, the General Assembly quietly passed Senator John Wiles' SB 207, which opens up juvenile court abuse and neglect hearings to the public. Governor Perdue inked the bill into law yesterday, and it will take effect at the beginning of 2010.
Public policy in Georgia has long placed a high value on protecting the privacy of abused children. To protect that privacy, our laws have generally required that juvenile court abuse, foster care, and termination of parental rights hearings in Georgia be closed to the public. Proponents of open juvenile court hearings have countered that opening the courts brings the sort of public scrutiny and "sunshine" that both helps the public understand the problems of child abuse and holds accountable judges, attorneys, agency officials, and child abusers.
This debate over "open" and "closed" hearings goes back to the beginnings of the juvenile courts in 1899. And although "open courts" bills have been introduced in prior legislative sessions here in Georgia, they gained no traction. Many of us in the child advocacy community were divided on whether the transparency and accountability possible through open courts was worth the potential harm to innocent victims. The issue lingered with no resolution.
But this year the proponents of open courts won the policy argument based in large part on the work of a group of volunteer child advocates who had almost no prior legislative advocacy experience. But based on their research, this group firmly believed that opening up the courts would improve outcomes for abused children and improve public confidence in the courts without harming the children involved in these cases. They marshaled their evidence, built a website promoting the idea (www.bettercourtsforkids.org), worked tirelessly at the Capitol, and were successful in convincing the General Assembly and Governor Perdue of the merits of their argument.
They came armed with studies such as one done in 2001 in Minnesota by the National Center for State Courts, which demonstrated that opening these court hearings increased attendance at child abuse hearings, but the additional audience members were mostly members of the child's extended family, foster parents, and service providers. That same study indicated, anecdotally, that in open hearings the attorneys and case workers were more likely to be fully prepared.
Their successful work advocacy perhaps demonstrates the old adage attributed to Margaret Mead: ""Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
The new law itself provides that most child abuse and neglect and termination of parental rights hearings will be "presumed" open to the public and the media. The juvenile court will have discretion, on request or based on its own judgment, to close hearings that involve sexual abuse or in situations where the public scrutiny would hinder the court's ability to rehabilitate the family structure or be contrary to the child's best interests. Before closing the hearing to the public, however, the court will have to state its reasons in writing.
Members of the child advocacy and juvenile court community are right to be concerned that the details of an innocent child's victimization may be spread across the front page, the television screen, or the Internet. Professor William Patton of Whittier Law School in California has noted situations in which media outlets have printed not only the names of child abuse victims but also detailed descriptions of the sexual abuse they suffered.1 Others say they find the press respectful of the rights of children. Patricia Oaker, who serves as media liaison for the open courts of Cleveland, Ohio, says that media observers often are themselves reluctant to publish the name or photograph of a child victim. Even the toughest defenders of the First Amendment's press protections, she says, understand when told how exposing these children's details can mark them forever.
Now that this dramatic change is upon us, judges, attorneys, case managers, and foster parents will have to learn how to take steps to protect these vulnerable victims while allowing the public and media to scrutinize their work. Over the next few months, there will be trainings organized to help judges learn when and how to properly close a hearing and to teach foster parents how to present evidence in ways that gives sufficient information while perhaps holding back details, such as their home addresses or the names of the children in their homes. And over time, we will see what balance the courts are able to strike between public accountability and child privacy.
If you'd like to learn more about SB 207, visit: http://www.legis.state.ga.us and type "SB 207" in the search box. To learn more about the potential benefits of open courts, visit www.bettercourtsforkids.org. And to hear the rationale of those who believe closed courts are in children's best interests, you can read one of Professor Patton's articles at: http://www.law.suffolk.edu/highlights/stuorgs/lawreview/docs/Patton.pdf.
1 Cited in To Open or Not To Open: The Issue of Public Access in Child Protection Hearings (National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, 2004).
Tom Rawlings, Georgia's Child Advocate for the Protection of Children, was appointed by Governor Sonny Perdue to assure quality and efficiency in Georgia's child protective systems. The Office of the Child Advocate is a resource for those interested in the welfare of our state's neglected and abused children. Tom can be reached through the OCA website at www.gachildadvocate.org .