Juvenile Information

HOW JUVENILE COURT WORKS

If your child has been arrested, he or she can either be cited and released or detained at a juvenile detention facility. If your child is in custody, he or she will be arraigned in juvenile court within 48 hours, excluding weekends and holidays.

JUVENILE DETENTION HEARING

If your child is in custody, his or her first court date is called a detention hearing. At the detention hearing the juvenile referee or juvenile judge will make a determination on whether to continue to detain your child pending adjudication of the charges. The juvenile referee or juvenile judge will have input from the juvenile probation department, as well as from the juvenile deputy district attorney and juvenile defense attorney.

The criteria used by most juvenile judges on whether to continue to detain your child pending adjudication are as follows:

1. It is reasonably necessary for the protection of the person or property of another that your child be detained.
2. It's a matter of immediate and urgent necessity for the protection of your child that he or she be detained.
3. Whether your child is a flight risk and will not appear in court.
4. Whether your child has violated a prior court order.

At the juvenile detention hearing your child's attorney will enter a plea admitting or denying the petition. Most attorneys will deny the petition pending evaluation of the states case.

If your child is detained, he or she has a right to a speedy trial to take place within 15 court days of the arraignment. If your child is not in custody, the speedy trial requires an adjudication date within 30 calendar days.

JUVENILE ARRAIGNMENT DATE

If your child is not on custody, his first court date is called arraignment. Your child's attorney will often enter a denial of the petition and set a pretrial and a court date.

JUVENILE PRETRIAL DATE

The pretrial date is set up so the attorneys of both parties can discuss a possible resolution to the case and to discuss other outstanding discovery issues. If your child is in custody, this must be set up the week following the arraignment unless time is waived. In other words the pretrial date or even the court trail date, can be set at a much later date if your child's attorney and your child agree to a later date. If your child is not in custody, his/her pretrial must generally be scheduled two to three weeks after the arraignment unless time is waived. Many juvenile judges participate in a discussion of a resolution though a private conference in the judges chambers.

JUVENILE COURT TRIAL

Unlike adult court, your child is not entitled to a jury trial. In lieu of twelve jurors, the juvenile court trials are done by a judge or commissioner who acts as both judge and trier of fact. Therefore it is very important that you have a lawyer that is familiar with the juvenile court proceedings and the juvenile court judges. Under penal code 170.6 your child has a right to an unbiased judge. Your child has to challenge the judges impartiality immediately otherwise he or she can be deemed to have waived that right. Only an experienced juvenile attorney will know which juvenile judges or juvenile commissioners are fair.

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