Communications made in the application for or in the course of a sexual offender's diagnosis and treatment in the program between a sexual offender or member of the offender's family and any employee of the department who is assigned to work in the program, or approved provider, as defined in KRS 17.500, shall be privileged from disclosure in any civil or criminal proceeding, other than proceedings to determine the sentence, unless the offender consents in writing to the disclosure or the communication is related to an ongoing criminal investigation. The privilege created by this section shall not extend to disclosures made for the purpose of determining whether the offender should continue to participate in the program. The provisions of KRS 620.030 shall not apply to a communication made, received, or overheard if the communication is made pursuant to this section. The offender shall be informed in writing of the limits of the privilege created in this section.
KRS 197.440
Sexual offender's communications which are privileged
Applied in 9 court decisions — leading case McKune Warden et al. v. Lile (2002)
Most recently applied in Skaggs v. Commonwealth (January 2016)
Effective: July 12, 2006 History: Amended 2006 Ky
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Kentucky General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain Kentucky statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.