Legal Question in Criminal Law in Minnesota

Juvenile --> Re: Adjudicated delinquent

In what I will call "traditional juvenile court," juveniles are presumed to be too young to be fully responsible for their actions, and so the main purpose of delinquency actions is "rehabilitation." This is quite different than criminal court cases for adults. In Minnesota, it is possible for a juvenile to be "certified as an adult" and be prosecuted in adult criminal court. It is also possible for a juvenile's case to be treated as an "EJJ" or Extended Jurisdiction Juvenile" case, which can include an adult stayed sentence, among other things.

Assuming your son was not certified as an adult, or handled as an EJJ case, and was part of "traditional juvenile court" in Minnesota; then he was not convicted of a crime, but may have been "adjudicated delinquent." The terminology, and the distinction, is important. Since he could only have been "adjudicated delinquent" in traditional juvenile court, he was not "convicted of a crime." Therefore, it is correct that such a person should not say he was convicted of a crime, or of a felony, since that would not be true -- for this incident.

Court records generally may be kept forever, and, are often used for genealogical research! However, some court and other government (law enforcement) records may be "non-public" or not accessible by the public. Traditional juvenile court records may be kept forever, but are generally non-public.

I don't know whether a juvenile delinquency adjudication for burglary would come up on a "background check." You might check his NCIC record via the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) to see if it shows up there. (They administer the FBI's NCIC database in Minnesota.) That is probably the most commonly used record for background checks.