The New Jersey Supreme Court continued in relevant part: We concur with the Appellate Division that it might not be possible for the Division to make the required showing in a different set of circumstances, such as a setting involving an older child who has not sustained a head injury, recalls the incident, and can testify at a Title 9 factfinding trial. The application of N.J.S.A. 2C:52-19’s “good cause shown and compelling need based on specific facts” standard thus turns on the circumstances of this matter.
N.J.S.A. 2C:52-19 also requires that “the subject matter of the records of arrest or conviction is the object of litigation or judicial proceedings.” That mandate is clearly satisfied here. The record reflects that Arlo’s prosecution arose from the injuries sustained by Daniel on March 30, 2019, and that those injuries are the basis for the Title 9 proceeding at issue.
Finally, N.J.S.A. 2C:52-19 requires that the motion or any order granted pursuant to the motion “shall specify the person or persons to whom the records and information are to be shown and the purpose for which they are to be utilized.” Both the Division’s motion and the trial court’s order granting the motion specified that the expunged records would be used in the Title 9 fact-finding trial, and the order noted that the proceedings were confidential. Although the record does not specifically identify the persons to whom the expunged records have been disclosed, it indicates that before the Division’s motion was filed, its counsel distributed the expunged records received from the Prosecutor’s Office to all counsel of record.
Accordingly, we agree with the Appellate Division that the trial court properly granted the Division’s motion to use Arlo’s expunged records at the Title 9 factfinding trial. We do not rule on the admissibility of any of the expunged records at trial; that determination is for the trial court on remand.
The judgment of the Appellate Division is affirmed, and the matter is remanded to the trial court for further proceedings in accordance with this opinion.
At trial, the defendant can still use the Rules of Evidence to find a basis to object to the admissibility of the expunged records. Such an objection is much more valuable at a jury trial then a bench trial. A successful pretrial objection before a jury trial means that the jury will never consider the evidence at issue. With a bench trial, the judge must consider the evidence before ruling on its admissibility.
