Image via Facebook
A judge will weigh requests to have any juvenile records that exist for Michael Brown be made public. The unarmed 18-year-old was shot and killed in Ferguson, Mo. last month by police officer Darren Wilson.
The Associated Press reports that both the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and a journalist from California have filed claims to have any records for Brown released. Though the state of Missouri keeps juvenile records private, both suits assert that the public has a right to know if Brown was arrested as a minor.
But, as the Associated Press points out, at the root the argument is whether Brown's death relinquishes his right to privacy. A specific case from 1984 involving the death of an 18-year-old who was killed while shoplifting was cited by Fresno, Calif.'s Charles C. Johnson:
The lawsuit by Charles C. Johnson of Fresno, California, cites a 1984 Missouri Court of Appeals ruling in which the juvenile records of an 18-year-old who was killed while shoplifting at a supermarket were released as part of a wrongful death lawsuit.
In that case, the mother of the young man killed after he was beaten by a store security guard in the 1979 robbery challenged a trial court's decision to release the records. They were sought by the defendants to help determine the value of the 18-year-old's lost earning capacity.
Still, many argue that any possible juvenile records that Brown has have nothing to do with his death at Wilson's hands.
[via The Associated Press]
Send tips, photos and news developments to [email protected].
