Legal question

ZXguy · Sep 7, 2012

Until only recently, in Lexington you could look up any current or previous inmate in the Fayette Co jail. Got arrested eight years ago for suspected DUI? Well, you were still in there. Get arrested for suspended license and no insurance? Your pic was available for everyone to see -- just search by name or date.

Over the last year or so, they changed it a bit and you can only see the current population housed in the county jail.

Although I found it interesting to snoop around the site and type in my friend's names lol, I admit having that information easily accessible to the public was kinda sketchy. Remember, you can easily be arrested and never found guilty of a crime -- but the fact that your mug shot and arrest was forever stored on an easily accessible website was a bit of a privacy issue.

Still, I suspect that info is available offline, but would just take a bit more effort to get to it. Personally if I had been arrested on charges which were later dropped, I'd be pretty upset if my photo remained on such a site.

self preservation · Sep 7, 2012

A legal question similar to yours was ask of me about a week ago and I had no idea what to tell the guy. Here's the story. What do you all think?

A friend of mine that lives in Ky is wanting to try for his CCDW. But a few months back the girl he was dating decided it wasn't working out between the two and she moved back to Indiana where she was from.

One night they are on the phone (he was in Ky and she was in IN) and an argument broke out. Long story short she filed a police report on him (in Indiana of course) and he was later charged with Indiana IC 35-45-2 1
Intimidation, that states,
Sec. 1. (a) A person who communicates a threat to another person, with the intent:
(1) that the other person engage in conduct against the other person's will;
(2) that the other person be placed in fear of retaliation for a prior lawful act; or
(3) of causing:
(A) a dwelling, a building, or another structure; or
(B) a vehicle;
to be evacuated;
commits intimidation, a Class A misdemeanor.

He went before the judge and they diverted this charge for 2 years. The KSP website states that you may be disqualified for a CCDW if you have been convicted of,
Terroristic threatening in the third degree within the past three years.
or
Conviction of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence

Same charge but different wording for different states???????????
Also, he was not convicted but diverted. Would that make a difference if he applies for his CCDW?

His divertion runs up in November of next year, but he would like to go for his CCDW now but doesn't want to waste the money if they are going to kick it out. I'm stumped

KYGlockster · Sep 7, 2012

self preservation said:
A legal question similar to yours was ask of me about a week ago and I had no idea what to tell the guy. Here's the story. What do you all think?

A friend of mine that lives in Ky is wanting to try for his CCDW. But a few months back the girl he was dating decided it wasn't working out between the two and she moved back to Indiana where she was from.

One night they are on the phone (he was in Ky and she was in IN) and an argument broke out. Long story short she filed a police report on him (in Indiana of course) and he was later charged with Indiana IC 35-45-2 1
Intimidation, that states,
Sec. 1. (a) A person who communicates a threat to another person, with the intent:
(1) that the other person engage in conduct against the other person's will;
(2) that the other person be placed in fear of retaliation for a prior lawful act; or
(3) of causing:
(A) a dwelling, a building, or another structure; or
(B) a vehicle;
to be evacuated;
commits intimidation, a Class A misdemeanor.

He went before the judge and they diverted this charge for 2 years. The KSP website states that you may be disqualified for a CCDW if you have been convicted of,
Terroristic threatening in the third degree within the past three years.
or
Conviction of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence

Same charge but different wording for different states???????????
Also, he was not convicted but diverted. Would that make a difference if he applies for his CCDW?

His divertion runs up in November of next year, but he would like to go for his CCDW now but doesn't want to waste the money if they are going to kick it out. I'm stumped

Did she record the conversation or something? Does he have any previous convictions on his record? I can't believe this would have even made it to a judge without some sort of evidence that the crime was committed. Did she have witnesses, or did he admit to saying something he shouldn't have?

ZXguy · Sep 8, 2012

gutshot said:
Arrests and incarcerations are public records and as such are open to viewing, copying and publication by the public. Court actions, convictions, dismissals and acquittals are also public records. More and more public records are being made available online. This is as it should be. The public has an interest in knowing what the government is doing and public record are open to public scrutiny by law. We don't want our government operating in secret. How some people use these public records may be open to discussion and differing opinions of its value or moral correctness. It is a fact of life that a person's (especially a public figure's) arrest might make front page news, but his acquittal may get no mention. Both records should be and are (usually) available to those who want to know.

I agree 101% that this information is and should be public information. I have no problem with that at all. However, being public information does not mean that it necessarily must be or should be available on a website for all eternity. As people with two legs (most of us), we can walk ourselves down to the courthouse and obtain that information if we want or need it. I'm fine with that.

By the standard you're suggesting, we could also encourage our govt to broadcast all arrests (even without convictions) on public tv, on billboards, on door hanging flyers at every house. Sure, we could do that and it would be legal, but it's be a pretty pathetic and disrespectful thing to do. Just because it's legal to do a thing does not mean we should do the thing. Just because we can print all arrests on toilet paper doesn't mean we should. It's perfectly appropriate and acceptable for this information to be publicly available.

As a similar example, voter registration information (which includes name, address, social security, etc.) is public information (at least the last time I checked which was several years ago). Should that information also be freely available on a website? If you want to know your neighbor's SSN, should you have the *easy* ability to just go to SpyOnYourNeighbor.gov and look up his SSN by his name? Once again, which this information is and should be available, I'm not sure we necessarily need to drop it onto the internet. Having it available at the courthouse without being online is perfectly acceptable.

I have no problem with the current inmate population being online. You can easily look to see who has been picked up in the last 48 hours or you can see information on the current population, but you can no longer see if someone was arrested ten years ago unless you really want such information and make the effort to just go get it downtown.

With that said, CONVICTION information should indeed be online. If someone is convicted of DUI or theft or for drugs or whatever, I would encourage a searchable database. If you don't want to be databased and indexed, then don't get arrested and convicted.

self preservation · Sep 8, 2012

KYGlockster said:
Did she record the conversation or something? Does he have any previous convictions on his record? I can't believe this would have even made it to a judge without some sort of evidence that the crime was committed. Did she have witnesses, or did he admit to saying something he shouldn't have?

Not recorded. Other than this charge he record is clean. The LEO that took the complaint wrote up a report and the state took it. He probably could have beat it but he didn't want to have to travel back and forth from KY to IN due to his job and plus the cost he would have to pay to beat the charge. So he agreed to a 2 year divertion instead just to make it all go "away"

But I have no idea if this would keep him from getting his KY CCDW or not.

KYGlockster · Sep 8, 2012

ZXguy said:
I agree 101% that this information is and should be public information. I have no problem with that at all. However, being public information does not mean that it necessarily must be or should be available on a website for all eternity. As people with two legs (most of us), we can walk ourselves down to the courthouse and obtain that information if we want or need it. I'm fine with that.

By the standard you're suggesting, we could also encourage our govt to broadcast all arrests (even without convictions) on public tv, on billboards, on door hanging flyers at every house. Sure, we could do that and it would be legal, but it's be a pretty pathetic and disrespectful thing to do. Just because it's legal to do a thing does not mean we should do the thing. Just because we can print all arrests on toilet paper doesn't mean we should. It's perfectly appropriate and acceptable for this information to be publicly available.

As a similar example, voter registration information (which includes name, address, social security, etc.) is public information (at least the last time I checked which was several years ago). Should that information also be freely available on a website? If you want to know your neighbor's SSN, should you have the *easy* ability to just go to SpyOnYourNeighbor.gov and look up his SSN by his name? Once again, which this information is and should be available, I'm not sure we necessarily need to drop it onto the internet. Having it available at the courthouse without being online is perfectly acceptable.

I have no problem with the current inmate population being online. You can easily look to see who has been picked up in the last 48 hours or you can see information on the current population, but you can no longer see if someone was arrested ten years ago unless you really want such information and make the effort to just go get it downtown.

With that said, CONVICTION information should indeed be online. If someone is convicted of DUI or theft or for drugs or whatever, I would encourage a searchable database. If you don't want to be databased and indexed, then don't get arrested and convicted.

I agree with everything you have said. I believe everything should be public information that the government does, but not everything concerning citizens. Citizens have a right to privacy, the government does not. Things like CDWL's, DL's, SSC's, and the like should not be made available for the general public to examine. The problem is, is that the numbers from these documents are used on a majority of government documents and such, and many of these documents are public record.

If you were arrested for a crime, and the charges were dropped, you were acquitted (found not guilty), your prosecution was deferred, or you were granted pre-trial diversion and completed all relevant expectations and had charges dismissed, these records should be sealed as soon as the charges are dropped/removed. It is unfair for someone that did nothing wrong to suffer from defamation of character because a phony arrest is still posted. I also believe it is unfair if someone has completed everything they were supposed to by the courts, had their charges dismissed, yet still suffer from available information.

Legal question

ZXguy

Regular Member

self preservation

Regular Member

KYGlockster

Activist Member

ZXguy

Regular Member

self preservation

Regular Member

KYGlockster

Activist Member