Savannah's Courage Opens Door to Overdue Reform

Here is the problem with using secrecy to protect children: it exposes children to incompetent and venal adults who use the secrecy to hide their mistakes.

The vast majority of those adults - parents, teachers, social workers, police, counselors and judges -  work in the best interest of those children, but in too many cases at least one person screws up. The system is set up to catch and fix those mistakes, but we the public have no idea if it really does, because everything involving court-involved children in Kentucky is kept behind closed doors.

Where anything can happen.

Jason Riley at the Courier:

Jefferson County Attorney Mike O’Connell’s office will push to open some juvenile court proceedings in Kentucky, citing the recent case of 17-year-old Savannah Dietrich, who was up for a contempt charge for tweeting the names of two boys who assaulted her.

“Kentucky is way behind the curve,” O’Connell said at a news conference Wednesday, saying the state has some of the strictest secrecy laws in the nation and is one of only 11 states that bar any access to juvenile proceedings. “... It is time for a change” and Kentucky needs to “join the ranks of the rest of the states throughout the country.”

Call or email your legislator  to urge them to open Kentucky's juvenile courts.