Police Sharing Criminal Record Information With Universities

August 12, 2011

Police Sharing Criminal Record Information With Universities

Last year, the fatal attack on college senior Yeardley Love by her ex-boyfriend George Huguely shocked students and faculty across the University of Virginia campus. Both Love and Huguely were graduating seniors, both were Lacrosse players, and both were liked by their peers. Huguely, however, had a record of violence that the University was unaware of, and questions are now being asked if there is any chance Love might still be alive if the police had notified the University about Huguely's previous criminalhistory.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell believes Love's death may possibly have been avoided if police had told the University about Huguely's arrest two years ago. However, he also states that while he understands the school's desire to have the information, creating legislation to that effect could result in unfair consequences.

Gov. McDonnell is concerned that a promising student who committed a single minor infraction in his past could be at risk of being kept out of school. He also maintains that the privacy rights of students must be balanced with the University's desire to know about a potentially violent student or a potentially abusive student relationship if an event occurs off-campus.

The challenges of regularly obtaining accurate, reliable information on a consistent basis also concern Gov. McDonnell, as does mistaken identification and the risk that students in trouble with police will not disclose the fact that they are students. There are also questions about how efficiently police departments in other counties or states could share that information with each other and the University.

Huguely was arrested outside a fraternity house in 2008, after engaging in a drunken altercation with a police officer. While he ended up pleading guilty to public intoxication and resisting arrest, the officer who arrested him was forced to use her taser on Huguely after he refused to stop resisting, and reported that he threatened to kill her.

It remains to be seen how effective notification by the police would be in cases such as Huguely's, or how it might have prevented Love's death. It is unlikely the University of Virginia would have been able to guess that Huguely would be accused of killing Yeardley Love based upon one conviction for being intoxicated and fighting with police two years before, an event not connected to Love.

The president of the University is now requiring a screen every semester to make sure the University is aware of any incident involving UVA students. Other schools already run similar checks on prospective students.

Article provided by Montagna & Montagna, P.C.
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