Request By:
Mr. Michael L. Williams
Assistant County Attorney
for Juvenile Matters
207 Campbell Towers
Newport, Kentucky 41071
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear Attorney General; Elizabeth E. Blackford, Assistant Attorney General
You have stated that the Newport City Police Department will not transport apprehended juveniles to the detention facility which is provided by Campbell County pursuant to KRS 208.130. You have also stated that in one recent incident the Newport City Police Department took a juvenile into custody pursuant to an apprehension order issued by a judge, which order directed that the child should be placed in detention pending further orders of the court, held the child in a holding cell in the Newport Police Department and then released the child in contravention of the Judge's order. In light of these facts, you have asked whether the police agency must deliver a child to the juvenile detention facility when it has taken the child into custody pursuant to a court order ordering the child to be placed in detention. The answer to your question is yes. The police agency which executes that order must deliver the child to the detention facility.
Pursuant to KRS 208.130, the fiscal court in a county containing a city of the second class is required to provide a juvenile detention facility. Pursuant to KRS 208.080(2) and KRS 208.192(1), a child who is taken into custody pursuant to a court order which orders the child to be placed in detention shall be delivered without delay to the juvenile detention facility provided by the fiscal court.
Thus, where the fiscal court has provided a juvenile detention facility, an order of the court directing that the child be placed in detention may be properly executed only by delivering the child to the detention facility. Simply taking the child to the station and placing him or her in a holding cell does not constitute proper execution of the order. Because the Newport Police, like the sheriff and the county police, are under a duty to obey all orders of the court and to properly execute all process directed to them, they must apprehend the child and take him to the detention facility when ordered by the court to place the child in detention. KRS 95.480(3).