Colorado High Court Makes Ruling On Health Records In School Threat Case
DENVER (CBS4) - The Colorado Supreme Court has made an important ruling in the case of two teenage girls accused of threatening Mountain Vista High School.
Sienna Johnson and Brooke Higgins were 16 when they were arrested for an alleged murder plot at their Highlands Ranch school.
Prosecutors have charged those teenagers as adults and the defense attorneys have asked for a reverse transfer -- they argue the teens should be tried as juveniles.
The dispute has prompted a battle over mental health records, and that was what the state's high court ruled on on Monday.
In the reverse transfer process that was requested in the case, a judge ordered the teens should produce mental health records after prosecutors asked for them.
The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday ruled Johnson does not have to produce mental health records or even do a mental health assessment to get her case transferred back to juvenile court.
The ruling is only effective in Johnson's case, and it states a court cannot order those privileged records, nor an assessment. It states the reverse transfer only requires the court consider mental health records be "made available."
CBS4 asked the district attorney's office for a comment but an official there said it would be inappropriate to comment at this time.
Both Johnson and Higgins will be back in court later this month.