Despite news reports that Trolley Square shooter Sulejman Talovic had a troubled juvenile record that included threatening a girl with a knife, court officials are acting as if the record didn't exist, adhering to laws governing such juvenile information.

As police continue to look for a motive or cause in Salt Lake City's most tragic and violent shooting, which left six people dead, including Talovic, and four wounded, news of the troubled teen's juvenile record, leaked to the media, offered a small insight.

News reports indicate Talovic had a juvenile court record documenting that he pointed a knife at a girl and threatened to kill her when he was 12. Two years before, he was in juvenile court for threatening his family's landlord with a knife.

When contacted about the juvenile record however, Utah court officials say Talovic's juvenile record "does not exist."

That is because under order of a 3rd District juvenile judge, Talovic's juvenile record was expunged sometime before the shootings. By law, court officials must treat the record as if it does not exist, even if the record does. So it remains sequestered behind lock and password.

"You don't physically destroy that, it's just treated as if it doesn't exist, for legal purposes," said Brent Johnson, general counsel for the Administrative Office of the Courts.

By law, once juveniles turn 18, they can petition the court to have their record expunged, Johnson said. That is a recent change in the law that took place about two years ago. Before that, any juvenile who remained out of trouble with the juvenile court for a year or more could petition. The law now requires the record to be open until the offender is 18.

Johnson said once a record is expunged it is pulled from the court's system and not even court clerks can access it. The records are placed in a secure area, and only one or two people have the access codes for them.

The court rules say no one may access the records, Johnson said, but there are copies of the records elsewhere. With police, juvenile probation officers and other officials being involved in any given juvenile case, copies of a person's juvenile record can be spread out among these government agencies.

Johnson said that though an individual can request that copies of records be expunged by the court, police departments and other agencies have no legal obligation to do so.

Johnson said there is one exception to the expungement order and that is in situations in which federal law trumps state law.

If a person, such as Talovic, commits a heinous crime as an adult, Johnson said, not even local law enforcement can access the expunged juvenile record from the courts. It would require a federal agency, such as the FBI, to seek its release.

As of now, court officials must treat Talovic's record as if it doesn't exist, because the law requires it.

As for the release of the information regarding Talovic's expunged record, Bruce Thomas, trial court executive for 3rd District Juvenile Court, said there has been no investigation into the leak because there is no indication that it came from the courts.

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E-mail: gfattah@desnews.com