Juveniles

What happens if I release him and he goes out and kills someone?  What happens if I release him and he goes out and gets himself killed? You know these questions are going through the judge’s mind every time a defense attorney argues for a client’s release.  It is the great unspoken in the court [...]

You are upset when your child is arrested.  I understand you may also be angry, particularly when it is a second or third arrest.  What I can’t understand is when you go in front of a complete stranger – a social worker or a judge – and use them to vent your frustration with the [...]

One of the major differences I have found between representing a juvenile and representing an adult is that, in juvenile cases, there is usually a much greater similarity between what you read in the police report and what the client tells you.  

As a public defender in Philadelphia, I did a brief stint in the Juvenile Division representing young people accused of committing a crime. People told me before I started the rotation that I would either love working with juveniles or hate it; there didn’t seem to be any in-between. I found myself in the “love-it” [...]