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2828 LEGISLATIVE JOURNAL-HOUSE September 13, Mr. WONNELL. Only todockets. Mr. BERSON. To dockets and compilations kept in the nor- ma1 course of business. They would not have access that they have today. They do not have access today to the central state police repository of criminal justice records and they do not have it under this bill. Mr. O'DONNELL. Is there not a distinction between criminal history record information and docket information? Mr. BERSON. Yes, there is. Mr. O'DONNELL. Under this bill the public would not have access to criminal history record information. Is that correct? Mr. BERSON. That is correct. Mr. O'DONNE1,L. Rut reporters would, under that amendment? Mr. BERSON. As I read the Miller amendment, yes. Mr. O'DONNELL. So the posture of this hill now to be passed by the House would be that the public would not have access but that private employers, with permission, would, and reporters would? Mr. BERSON. If I read the Miller amendment, it would give the working press accessM the centralrepository. Mr. O'DONNELL. Let me give you two hypotheticals which I would like to respond to in terms of this bill: My secretary, as I understand it, is an employe of a Commonwealth agency. Sheis our employe, right? Mr. BERSON. Yes. Mr. O'DONNELL. All right. Suppose somebody decides to run against me for public of- fice, and I strongly suspect they have a long history of criminal activities. If I ask my secretary, who is an employe of a Cam- monwealth agency, to contact a court to find out the background would she he guilty of a misdemeanor or felony under this bill? Mr. BERSON. Contact thecourt? Mr. O'DONNELL. Or whoever is holding that information, clerkor court of sessions. Mr. BERSON. No. Those records are specifically exempt from the confidentiality provisions of this act. Mr. O'DONNELL. The criminal record information? Mr. BERSON. The traditional court records of police blotters, docket entries, and things like that are exempt from this bill. What we are talking about are state police central repository records and police repository records. Mr. O'DONNELL. Yes, but the problem is that what consti- tutes the records in the central repository will be determined under this act by the privacy and security council. Also the distinction between docket information and the criminal history record information is such that if my secretary went for the record information, she would be guilty of a misdemeanor under rule 902? Mr. BERSON. I do not think so. I do not read the bill that way. Your secretary is certainly entitled to go to any traditional source of criminal justice information such as the police blotters, docket entries, any sort of chronologically kept rec- 1 ords kept them as they are today and have access to them, as the puhlic in general has access to them without any violation of the statutes. Mr. O'DONNELL. You made reference to what is traditionally available to the puhlic. Is it what is traditionally available j to the public which presently vary from county to county, from court to court, and in the discretion of the court administration in each case? Mr. BERSON. Yes, that is true, but we do try to spell out what those traditionally available records are in here. It says, preserve the access of the public to those records. They are not that widely different. Mr. O'DONNELL. Is tradition not defined by practice? Mr. BERSON. Well, I suppose. But we do spell out in this bill that those records do remain and we make specific reference to chronologically kept criminal justice records, which are the usual docket entries, police blotters, et cetera. Then we say those arenot covered; they are available. Mr. O'DONNELL. Suppose the Philadelphia court system made a tradition of never releasing the sentencing practices of their judges. That is traditionally unavailable and that would remain unavailable under the bill? Mr. BERSON. Sentencing records of judges are not, I suppose, and would be a criminal justice record. Mr. O'DONNELL. They sure would. Mr. BERSON. I suppose as to that, since they have never existed, that I am aware of, I suppose they are covered by that. Mr. O'DONNELL. Thank you. Mr. Speaker. The SPEAKER pro tempore. For what purpose does the gentleman rise? Mr. O'DONNELL. On the bill. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is in order and may proceed. Mr. O'DONNELL. I would urge the House to vote against this hill. I think that we are doing the worst possible thing in this bill, and that is that we are making a vast amount of information available to a central depository. The amount and the nature of that information is not specifically defined. This bill is a broad empowerment of a privacy and security council, which, although it goes under the name of privacy and security, its real identity will remain to be seen. Criminal justice planners have an avid appetite for information, and there is no guarantee that merely giving them the name privacy and security will in any way guarantee that they will not be collecting vast information. I think that under the wording of this bill that is a very definite possibility. I think such information in the hands of a central depository is a very, very dangerous threat to civil liberties. On the other hand, the public does not have access, unless you are a reporter. If you have a crime problem in your community and if you are very anxious to find out the nature of that crime problem and the record background of the individuals, then you cannot get that information unless you happen to be a reporter. I do not think we can tolerate that kind of innominate. 1 do not think that we can permit central repositories to have vast amounts of information and at the same time shut those sources of information off to the public except inasmuch as the press decides that it is relevant. We all have our own views on that subject, hut, in my opinion, if you live in a place like Philadelphia, the only thing that is relevant to the press in terms of w
LEGISLATIVE JOURNAL-HOUSE crime is not what is happening in your community, hut rather that axe murder or that very dramatic kind of a slaying. The public needs access to a lot more information than that. I think that the terms that we are dealing with are somewhat vague here. Information that is traditionally available, information that is docket information and information that is broader than that and goes into the criminal history record, I do not think that that is a sufficient structure to prevent against the dangers that are involved here. I urge you to vote against the bill. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentle. man from Philadelphia, Mr. Berson. Mr. BERSON. I would urge the House to support the bill. We have been told by the Law Enforcement Assistance Agency that Pennsylvania is one of the remaining three states in the United States which has not enacted some privacy and security legislation with respect to criminal justice records. It is a requirement of the Law Enforcement Assistance Agency that the states do enact such legislation as a condition of continuing to receive Law Enforcement Assistance Agency grants of which this state gets many millions of dollars. We held extensive public hearings. We proposed to the public two different versions of this hill; one much more expensive than this one in terms of foreclosing access to criminal justice records. We had hearings in Harrisburg. We had hearings in Philadelphia. He heard 50-odd witnesses concerning this bill. We have amended this bill on a couple of occasions to try to sat- isfy the various competing interests of those who are primarily interested in privacy, those who are primarily interested in open access, and we have tried to balance those interests in as fair a way as we think wecan. We think this hill is as good an adjustment of those two very real competing interests as possihle. I think Mr. O'Donnell speaks on behalf of the open-access point of view, hut we have had, and we will have, prohahly, speakers on behalf of the privacy point of view, and that was the point that Mr. White raised in his debate with Mr. Miller on Mr. Miller's amendment. There are competing interests at work here. We do think, however, that this bill is a good effort, not perfect-no hill is- but it is a good effort to try to balance those competing interests by keeping the usual records, that are available to the pub lic and the press today, open to them and yet granting a degree of privacy and security as to those other records that are com- piled by the state police and local police departments, hut insur- ing their accuracy, their availability to the individual involved, and to the press under Mr. Miller's amendment. I think it is as good as we can get, and it is important that we pass it if we are going to continue to receive LEAA funds. The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Berks, Mr. Davies. Mr. DAVIES. Again may I place several questions of interrogation to the maker or the sponsor of the bill, Mr. Berson? The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman, Mr. Berson, consent to interrogation? The gentleman, Mr. Davies, is in order and may proceed. Mr. DAVIES. Mr. Speaker, under the Helfrick amendment with its provisions, does this go beyond the hasic confines of the hill and now actually removes all records, the docket record and everything else, as far as any juvenile convictions regardless of whether it would he for arson, rape or, let us say, the most serious felonies under the current statutes of the Cam- monwealth? Mr. BERSON. Mr. Ilavies, you have got me at a disadvau- tage. 1 do not have a copy of Mr. Helfrick's amendment. Juvenile records are controlled by a separate piece of legislation that was passed by the General Assembly a year or so ago. There was specifically exempted originally from this statute-- just indulge me for a minute while I review it-and it would ap- pear to me that under the Helfrick amendment juvenile records can be expunged only upon, and it does not contemplate auto- matic expungement. It can only be expunged upon-a petition to the court, and where the court finds one of the three condi- tions is present. I think that that even today, without any legislation, a court has the power to expunge criminal records. So in doing this, in a sense, I suppose, Mr. Helfrick is limiting the court's power to expunge juvenile records because today they can expunge them practically at will without any legislative guidelines or stand- ards to measure whether a record ought to he expunged or not. It would he my judgment that if the juvenile was guilty of a serious offense, such as arson, such as you mentioned, which is a felony and a serious one, the court would he extremely reluctant to expunge such a record. Mr. DAVIES. Mr. Speaker, after listening at some length to the testimony that was in front of the Special Committee on In- vestigating the Admittance of Individuals to Classes at the State Police Academy, would it he possible that under-things similar to this, that if the juvenile record was removed that it would he even more difficult or, for example, a placement body or the state police themselves or any security agency, including the military or, let us say, others, to make a determination as to the actual records of this individual, regardless of age? I am saying, let us say, they were committed at 16 and 17 years of age, where again a person by his own action today can become a liberated individual and does have some knowledge of their actions and is responsible for their actions under segments of Pennsylvania law now? In other words, the question is, how could these agencies or how could even the State Police make these determinations with directness and some kind of as- surances that they do have the factual records, if this does be come a fact? Mr. BERSON. My response is twofold, Mr. Speaker. Number one, you have to draw a distinction between arrest records and conviction records or nonconviction records. The arrest records remain. There is no expungement of those. They are there. They are still there. Now, the second thing is, that under the Helfrick amendment, if I understand it-and Mr. Helfrick can correct me if I am wrong-any time a petition to expunge a record is brought, the local prosecutor has to he given notice of the bringing of such a petition, and he, of course, if he is a responsible fellow, and I am sure that he is, if he thinks that it is a serious matter, he is going to go in and oppose it, and I think if he opposes it, a court is going to be extremely reluctant to give it.
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