The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
Judge opens court for juvenile to be tried as adult
BRIDGEPORT — In a victory for court transparency, a federal judge last week overturned the state’s nearly year-old law sealing the cases of anyone who is accused of committing a crime when they were younger than 18 years old — including the now 59-yearold Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel.
A federal judge last week stood up for court transparency, overturning the state’s nearly year-old law sealing the cases of anyone who is accused of committing a crime when they were younger than 18 years old — including the now 59-yearold Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel.
And 17-year-old Infante Lugo of Bridgeport was the first to be affected by U.S. District Court Judge Michael P. Shea’s ruling. Lugo, to be tried as an adult, was arraigned in an open courtroom on Monday on robbery and assault charges.
On July 24, Shea ordered the state Judicial Branch to make public all juvenile cases transferred to adult court under the Juvenile Transfer Act.
“Even if the state has a compelling interest in protecting the privacy of juvenile defendants ... the confidentiality provisions of the Juvenile Transfer Act are not narrowly tailored to achieve that goal because they reverse the presumption of openness, they sweep too broadly, their exceptions do not align with the state’s stated goals and they fail to take account of less restrictive alternatives to protect the privacy of juvenile defendants,” the judge ruled.
Monday morning, there was a decided, hushed pause as Superior Court Judge Tracy Lee Dayton was about to arraign Lugo.
In a closed courtroom she had already ruled he was to be transferred to adult court. Now she was faced with a three-day-old ruling ordering files unsealed — and with a news reporter in the courtroom.
“It’s an open court,” she stated.
“The district court’s ruling is an important victory for the press and the public,” said Katie Townsend, Legal Director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “The decision ensures that defendants under the age of 18 that the state of Connecticut criminally prosecutes as adults for the most serious crimes will not be tried in secret, and that is exactly what the First Amendment requires.”
Shea granted an injunction against the law sought in a lawsuit by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Hartford Courant. He made a finding that the lawsuit was likely to prevail and ordered all new cases to be unsealed but allowed defendants in older cases a month’s postponement to decide whether to appeal his order.
“As the case is still pending, the Judicial Branch respectfully declines to comment” on the RCFP and Courant lawsuit, said Judicial Branch spokeswoman Melissa Farley.
Elizabeth Benton, spokeswoman for the state attorney general said, “We are reviewing the decision and evaluating next steps.”
The Juvenile Transfer Act was signed into law by then-Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in July 2019. Advocates said they wanted to protect teenagers from the stigma of a criminal record. But critics said the law, instead, kept secret from the public and victims what was going on with criminal cases.
In its lawsuit, the Courant claimed it was being prevented by the law from reporting on the case of Skakel, accused of killing 15-year-old Martha Moxley in 1975 when he was 15.