Present law requires the administrative director of the courts to establish criteria, develop procedures, and implement a Tennessee court information system (TnCIS). The system must provide an integrated case management and accounting software system addressing the statutory responsibilities of the clerks of the general sessions, chancery, circuit and juvenile courts. This bill removes juvenile courts from this provision. Present law provides that the administrative office of the courts (AOC) is directed to define and develop a centralized system of case management, document management, electronic case filing, electronic payment methods, data reporting, and any other capability deemed necessary for collection and reporting of all state and local court public case level data, pursuant to present law provisions of quality statewide data collection. This bill requires the AOC to maintain a criminal justice information services (CJIS) compliant centralized statewide juvenile case management system that will be integrated into the system developed pursuant to present law. The juvenile case management system must be made available to all juvenile court clerks, and the clerks must adopt and convert to the new system on a schedule to be determined in consultation with the AOC. DUTIES OF CLERK Under present law, it is the duty of the clerk of each of the courts to install and maintain the court information system as provided by the AOC that will collect and report electronically all data required under present law, or otherwise statutorily mandated, and the AOC must provide for the necessary data transfers with other state agencies as defined by the AOC or as statutorily required. This bill requires each juvenile court and juvenile court clerk to use the statewide juvenile case management system designated by the AOC pursuant to this bill. REPORTING PROCEDURE Present law requires each juvenile court, through the juvenile court clerk or juvenile court staff, to, each month, in a format prescribed by the administrative office of the courts, report to the administrative office of the courts certain information described in present law. This bill revises this provision to, instead, require such courts to use the statewide juvenile case management system prescribed by the administrative office of the courts. ON MARCH 24, 2025, THE HOUSE SUBSTITUTED SENATE BILL 992 FOR HOUSE BILL 1038, ADOPTED AMENDMENT #1 AND PASSED SENATE BILL 992, AS AMENDED. AMENDMENT #1 requires all files and juvenile court records in a delinquency proceeding, including medical reports, psychological evaluations, and any other document, relating to a person to be opened to public inspection and their content subject to disclosure to the public if (i) the person has committed a homicide on the grounds of a school, whether or not the person has been adjudicated delinquent for, or convicted of, a homicide offense; and (ii) the person is deceased. However, any information in a file or juvenile court record that directly or indirectly identifies another juvenile must be redacted.

Statutes affected:
Introduced: 16-3-803(h), 16-3-803, 16-3-822, 18-1-105, 37-1-187