O.C.G.A.

O.C.G.A. § 49-5-41.1 (2019)

Inspection and retention of records of juvenile drug use

✓ O.C.G.A. — 2019 edition (Public.Resource.Org Release 73)

Code text and O.C.G.A. statutory annotations on this page reflect the 2019 Official Code of Georgia Annotated (Public.Resource.Org Release 73, 2019-08-21; public domain per Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). The Syfert case-law annotations in Notes of Decisions, below, are current.

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(a) Notwithstanding Code Section 49-5-40, all reports, files, and records of child controlled substance or marijuana abuse shall be open to inspection only upon order of the juvenile court. As used in this Code section, the term “juvenile court” means the court exercising jurisdiction over juvenile matters, as defined under Code Section 15-11-2, in the county where the report was made.

(b) The juvenile court may permit authorized representatives of recognized organizations compiling statistics for proper purposes to inspect and make abstracts from official records under whatever conditions upon their use and distribution the judge may deem proper and may punish by contempt any violation of those conditions. The judge shall permit authorized representatives of the Department of Human Services and the Council of Juvenile Court Judges to inspect and extract data from child controlled substance and marijuana abuse records for the purpose of obtaining statistics on juveniles and to make copies pursuant to the order of the court.

(c) In no case shall records of child controlled substance or marijuana abuse be retained by the Department of Human Services beyond the 24 months from the date a report is first received pursuant to Code Section 19-7-6 by a child welfare agency providing protective services.

(d) On application of a person who is the subject of a child controlled substance or marijuana abuse report, and after a hearing, the juvenile court may order the sealing of such reports, files, and records of the Department of Human Services. Upon entry of the order, the Department of Human Services shall treat the report and related information as if the report had never occurred. All index references shall be deleted and the person, the court, and the Department of Human Services shall properly reply that no record exists with respect to the person upon inquiry in any matter. Inspection of the sealed files and records thereafter may be permitted by an order of the juvenile court upon petition by the person who is the subject of the records and only by those persons named in the order.

History

Code 1981, § 49-5-41.1, enacted by Ga.

L. 1987, p. 1000, § 3; Ga. L. 2009, p. 453, § 2-2/HB 228.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 2 cases (1 in the last 5 years), 1989–2025 · leading case: Horne v. State, 385 S.E.2d 704 (Ga. Ct. App. 1989).

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Horne v. State, 385 S.E.2d 704 (Ga. Ct. App. 1989). · cites it 4× “which is in the custody of the [Department of Human Resources] or other state or local agency is declared to be confidential, and access thereto is prohibited except as provided in Code Section 49-5-41 and Code Section 49-5-41.”

In the Interest of M. R., a Child v. N/A (Ga. Ct. App. 2025). “6 § 49-5-41.1 concerns juvenile drug use and does not pertain to this case.”

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.