Police questioning and juvenile court in Connecticut: the parent rule, the age line, and erased records

Connecticut has a statute most states do not. If you are under 16, any statement you make to a police officer is inadmissible in a delinquency case (inadmissible means the court cannot use it against you) unless your parent or guardian was present and both of you were first told three things: that you have the right to a lawyer, appointed for free if your family cannot afford one; that you can refuse to say anything; and that whatever you say can be used against you.

For 16 and 17 year olds the rule is softer but still real. Police must make reasonable efforts to contact a parent, and the teen must be told of the right to have a parent present during the interview, the right to a lawyer, and the right to stay silent. If those steps are skipped, the statement generally cannot be used in juvenile court.

This is the state's version of a principle the U.S. Supreme Court set in In re Gault (1967), which held that a young person facing a juvenile court charge has the right to notice, to a lawyer, to confront witnesses, and to remain silent. The Connecticut public defender's own advice for teens is short: ask for a lawyer right away, and stay silent until one arrives.

In Connecticut the juvenile court, formally the Superior Court for Juvenile Matters, handles delinquency cases for anyone who was at least 10 and under 18 when the act happened. Turning 18 while the case is open does not move it; what counts is your age on the day of the alleged act.

Some cases do move to the regular adult criminal docket. If a young person was 15 or older and is charged with a class A felony or most class B felonies (the most serious categories in Connecticut's criminal code), the transfer is automatic, though a lawyer must be appointed first. For other felonies committed at 15 or older, a prosecutor may ask for a transfer, and a juvenile judge must hold a hearing and find probable cause and that keeping the case in juvenile court would not serve the child's or the public's interests. The adult court can also send a case back.

One thing Connecticut does not have is a statewide youth curfew. Curfews here, where they exist, are city ordinances, so the rule in Hartford is not the rule in Norwalk. Check your own town's code, and check whether it has an exception for coming home from work.

Connecticut uses the word 'erasure' rather than sealing, and it goes further than many states. If a delinquency count is dismissed or the prosecutor drops it (a 'nolle'), the police and court records for that count are erased after thirteen months without anyone filing anything. If you are found not delinquent, the records are erased right away.

If you were found delinquent, you can petition the court for erasure once you are 18 and enough time has passed since your discharge: two years for most offenses, four years for a serious juvenile offense, with no new charges in that period. Once erased, the law treats the finding as if it never happened, and the people who keep the records may not disclose them.

A teen in Stamford applying to college or a job who is asked about a juvenile record should first find out whether it was erased. If it was, the honest answer to 'have you ever been adjudicated delinquent' is, under Connecticut law, no.