Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation on Friday that will allow investigators access to sensitive child protective services records — a change to the law meant to reduce confusion about the access that police are given when they have reasonable suspicion, as they did with the murder of 5-year-old Kenneth White, of Knox, almost a year ago.

“This bill would revise the procedure used when sharing information with law enforcement during an exigent situation where a child is missing,” Cuomo said in a statement.

The bill, as written, allowed a number of law-enforcement agencies access to records, and required an employee of the Office of Children and Family Services to be available to overrule denials of records by local social services, in the case of a missing child.

Cuomo described the bill he signed as “overbroad, cumbersome to implement,” and not able to offer “adequate safeguards to protect sensitive data.”

He stated that the Assembly and the Senate agreed to “correct” these problems when they meet in their next session in January 2016.

“On that basis, I am signing the bill,” Cuomo said.

The bill Cuomo signed into law passed without dissent in the Assembly, 144 to 0, and unanimously in the Senate, 63 to 0. The law will take effect 60 days after Cuomo signed it.

Local efforts

“There will be modifications, but, in the end, what we’ve done is clarify that, in an emergency, law enforcement does need immediate access to appropriate records,”  Democratic Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy, of Albany, told The Enterprise on Tuesday.

Both Fahy and Senator George Amedore, a Republican from Rotterdam, sponsored the bill, and said earlier that changes to the social services law would likely not have saved White’s life, but his case illuminated confusion about the access that law-enforcement agencies are given when they have reasonable suspicion.

Fahy, Amedore, and Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple announced Cuomo’s signing at the sheriff’s Clarksville office on Monday.

When White’s cousin, Tiffany VanAlstyne, was arrested for his murder last year, Albany County District Attorney David Soares told The Enterprise that he did not criticize the system as it was previously, with a subpoena required to obtain health records for an investigation. VanAlstyne pleaded guilty to murder this Tuesday, Nov. 24. (See related story.)

The records to be released to law enforcement agencies under the new legislation include information on what was initially reported; the final disposition; any social services offered or accepted; a treatment plan; names and “identifying data” of those involved; photographs; and the dates and circumstances for any requests of the register.

Fahy previously said that she got a call from Apple days after White’s murder. The kindergarten student at Berne-Knox-Westerlo was found dead on Dec. 18; his cousin, VanAlystyne, had reported him as abducted, but was arrested for murder the next day.

“This is an area of law that is very sensitive,” Fahy told The Enterprise this week. “They were blocked,” she said of Apple and his staff. During the time when law enforcement was still working on the premise of a kidnapping, access to records was critical, Fahy said.

“They could have been over state lines,” she said.

Apple expressed frustration after VanAlstyne’s arrest in December, saying investigators were left to rely on family members’ contradictory statements in a time-sensitive situation.

Fahy previously said that the regulations for police access to county records, before the current legislation was signed, were in two different places. Her bill, now signed into law, will “clean up the law and clarify the language,” she said then, to ensure immediate access to records for entities such as a district attorney, state police, or the sheriff’s department, within the strict parameters of the investigation of a suspected missing child. 

Fahy praised Amedore’s collaboration, saying, “We’re very pleased” that Cuomo signed the bill.

“I want to give a shout-out to the sheriff, who said, ‘Hey, there is something wrong,’” Fahy said. “You hope you don’t have to use this.”

She said that there was resistance to records access at the local and the state level.
“It seems simple, but it’s amazing what it took to get this done,” she said. “I’m glad the governor’s office recognized that…He’s requested some modifications that have been agreed to. I couldn’t be more pleased. It’s the right thing for law enforcement.”