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American Morning

In Maryland Community, Someone Entrusted With Care of Children Stands Accused of Abusing Four of Them

Aired July 29, 2002 - 07:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to look now at a case which calls into question the longstanding practice of sealing juvenile crime records. In one Maryland community, someone who was entrusted with the care of children now stands accused of abusing four of them. It turns out he may have a criminal record.

But as our own Kathy Slobogin reports, it is a record no one ever saw.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATHY SLOBOGIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): He grew up in this quiet community on the Chesapeake Bay. He was good with children and parents trusted him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was no question you were in good hands if you were with him.

SLOBOGIN: He taught karate at this studio and in the public schools. The children called him Mr. Todd. Then, on June 20, William Todd Adams was charged with sexually abusing four of his students, four little girls between five and eight. In court documents, police say Adams admitted the abuse.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It just devastates you. You just have no idea that this could have ever happened.

SLOBOGIN: This man, who remains anonymous to protect his children, is the father of two of the victims. His daughters are six and eight. But the sexual abuse was just the first blow. Rumors spread that this was not the only time Adams had molested children, that he'd done it before as a juvenile.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our first response was, well, that's just a rumor, it can't be true because he would never have been able to be hired by the studios, but most importantly, by our own public school system.

SLOBOGIN: The board of education says it had run a background check on Adams, including an FBI criminal check with fingerprints. Nothing turned up.

JIM JENNINGS, QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION: With Todd we got back no information that indicated there was any previous problems of any type.

SLOBOGIN: Adams worked in several after school programs teaching dozens of children.

JENNINGS: He evidently had a juvenile background history. And from our point of view, we would have liked to have known that, because that would have made a difference. The reality is we wouldn't have hired him.

SLOBOGIN: Adams' juvenile records are sealed. For that reason, CNN cannot independently confirm any prior record. Neither Adams nor his attorney would comment for CNN on any of the child abuse allegations. But an attorney hired by the victims' parents claims there's no doubt about Adams' history.

DAVID FISCHER, PARENTS' ATTORNEY: We know that when he was 14 years old he was adjudicated as a delinquent. He was found guilty of sexually molesting two children. I have confirmed that through several law enforcement sources.

SLOBOGIN: Outraged, this parent and others started a petition to change Maryland's laws so that juvenile sex offenses would be flagged for potential employers. It's part of a growing national trend to open up juvenile records.

(on camera): Nine states now open juvenile records to the public without any restrictions. Another 29 do so under certain conditions, for example, if the offender is over age 14 or if the crime is serious, like murder or rape.

But the movement to open juvenile records is controversial.

MARK SOLER, YOUTH LAW CENTER: The idea is that delinquent behavior when a child is young should not be held against them for the rest of their lives.

SLOBOGIN (voice-over): Mark Soler of the Youth Law Center says blanket laws opening up records are a bad idea. While there may be a legitimate need for some employers to know about juvenile offenses, he says even then a judge should make the call.

SOLER: I want a judge to look at that kind of thing and make a decision as to whether that information should be disclosed.

SLOBOGIN: But this father is driven by a need to protect other children, since he couldn't protect his own.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I cannot knowingly stand back and allow this to happen to other families when we know that there's a problem with our juvenile justice system.

SLOBOGIN: Many in this community, rocked by a sense of betrayal, agree with him.

Kathy Slobogin, CNN, Kent Island, Maryland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: So, does the need to protect juvenile offenders outweigh the public's right to know?

Joining us now to talk more about that, from Chicago, Angela Coin, with the Children & Family Justice Center.

Good morning and welcome.

ANGELA COIN, CHILDREN & FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER: Good morning.

ZAHN: So, Angela, just to put this all in perspective, there are some 38 states out there that have opened juvenile records. Why shouldn't parents in Maryland know that a person who comes into contact with their children is a previous juvenile sex offender?

COIN: Paula, the basis of our juvenile justice system is that it is based on the idea that children are different, that they're developmentally different. They're as socially and cognitively and morally different as they are physically different. Our juvenile justice system is based on the idea that we protect children while they're involved in the juvenile justice system so that they can be rehabilitated and so that they can be made into more productive citizens. Every state has different...

ZAHN: But what happens if they're not rehabilitated and if these charges are true, they go out and harm children once again?

COIN: I think the problem here is that any action that says across-the-board we should release information about these children because we have a fear of this lack of rehabilitation is the wrong way to look at this. Individual decisions have to be made about juvenile offenders in our system. We put judges there to make those decisions.

The suggestion that we should just open all records so that many children's lives who would not be re-offenders would be ruined isn't the right way to go about it.

What may be the right way to go about it in certain situations is if judges, juvenile court judges, are allowed to make those decisions and permitted to, after a course of rehabilitation, decide whether or not an individual case is these -- this information should be released.

ZAHN: You talk about the fact that you don't think across-the- board changes are the answer. There is a Maryland legislator who suggests that there could be reasonable changes in the law that might protect families from what allegedly happened with this family we just profiled. Is there any middle ground that you'd be willing to accept?

COIN: I think if there's a middle ground, it is a place where we don't take away the decision from a judge or from a court. There's no middle ground that a legislature could so saying they shall open all records. But the middle ground is to allow the juvenile court to do its job and recognize that we'll make an individual decision about every child, regardless of the severity of the kind of crime. And the way we've done this in the past is that legislators have decided that in many states some children are tried as adults. Those children's records are not protected when they're tried as adults and they're treated as adult records then made public, even in Maryland, I believe.

ZAHN: So is that the way to get around this, then? If a family really believes that those records should and been unsealed and they weren't that you go ahead and you have reason to believe this person will offend again, you try them as an adult?

COIN: I wouldn't advocate for trying those children as adults. I would argue that that is what some legislators have done to get around this and other issues. I think the answer is judges, keeping discretion in the courts. We appoint judges -- juvenile judges are different kinds of people. They don't just make decisions about guilty and innocence. They make decisions about best interests of the child. They make decisions about what actions each jurisdiction can take to put these children to make them productive citizens and we should let them do that job whenever possible.

ZAHN: Finally this morning, Angela, you no doubt know how any parent must feel as they listen to the pain and heartbreak of this father talking in silhouette this morning, a father that feels the juvenile system failed his family. What percent of juvenile offenders are actually rehabilitated?

COIN: It's a difficult question to answer and there's a lot of different answers to it around the country. Specifically with sexual offenders, it's important to note that while there seems to be a belief that sexual offenders can't be rehabilitated, it's not based, it's not supported by research.

What research supports is that sex offenders who receive treatment are much less likely to recidivate. It's the sex offenders that don't receive treatment that we have to worry about. And that that's where our juvenile justice system lets us down. The juvenile justice system...

ZAHN: You've got five seconds left, Angela. Just a quick reaction to this family and what message you have for them this morning, who say that they, their children suffered at the hands of a juvenile offender whose record wasn't uncovered by anyone?

COIN: Where the juvenile justice system let this family down is perhaps in failing to give that child services when he was 14.

ZAHN: All right, Angela Coin, we're going to have to leave it there.

From the Children & Family Justice Center, appreciate your perspective this morning.

COIN: Thank you.

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