Juvenile Court

The intake process in juvenile court has several steps. First, the preliminary inquiry where the complaint is screened to by a juvenile court counselor is done. Here, the purpose is to evaluate whether or not the alleged matter is within juvenile court’s jurisdiction (Carmen and Trulson, 2005).  Upon reasonable grounds of juvenile’s committed crime, the juvenile court counselor then authorizes the filing of a petition. Secondly, evaluation by the juvenile court counselor is done using statutory requirements to determine whether or not  complaint will be filed as a petition or whether the matter will be diverted or not or if no further action will be done (Carmen and Trulson, 2005). If the case will be filed as a petition, intake meeting with juvenile and parent is arranged by the court counselor who sends a letter to them.

The intake evaluation must be evaluated within 15 days. Upon approval, complaint for filling, the complaint is assisted. In the case of denial of petition by the prosecutor, the juvenile makes a request for appeal. This is done within 5 calendar days by the juvenile court counselor.  Upon receiving the appeal, the prosecutor offer notice review within 20 days and holds a conference with the counselor and the juvenile.

Diversion is an attempt to change the course of youthful offenders from the juvenile justice system. This is done by the juvenile court counselor despite the complaint being legally sufficient to allege delinquent act (Carmen and Trulson, 2005). However, the offense being diverted must qualify not as a non-divertible offense. After coming up with the diversion plan, juvenile court counselor sets the terms and conditions including referral to community resources like restitution, counseling, victim-offender mediation among others. The counselor may then enter into a contract with juvenile’s parents and the juvenile with their consent.

For a juvenile to legally sufficient, an assessment must be done and an offense alleged. In the case of multiple juveniles’ offense, the juvenile’s ability to pay restitution will not be solely relied upon. The filling of a petition must also be done on time. In the case of a diversion, the offense must be divertible for diversion to take place (Carmen and Trulson, 2005).

Public offenders are hired by the county or state while the private defenders are hired by individual defendants. Public defenders are also specialists in the field of criminal law while private defenders practice criminal law specialized in some offenses like drugs sex crimes and murder.  Given the specialization of the private defenders in a given area of criminal law, they have stronger ability to defend their clients compared to the public defenders.

References

Carmen, R., and Trulson C., (2005). Juvenile Justice: the system, process and law. Cengage Learning. USA.

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