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When your child is in trouble, talk to a juvenile
law attorney to prevent your child from being taken
into custody. At The Law Offices of Johnson & Johnson,
our juvenile dependency attorney will defend your family's
rights with zealous diligence in juvenile delinquency
cases.
The Law Offices of Johnson & Johnson helps families
throughout the Bay Area get through difficult personal
and legal times. Our lead juvenile law attorney, Carin
Johnson, has more than 17 years of experience handling
juvenile delinquency proceedings.
Can I contact my child if he
or she is arrested?
YES. If your child has been arrested, the first thing
you need to do is find out why he or she was taken
into custody and what needs to happen for the child
to be released. An interview with a probation officer
will happen immediately. This meeting (usually done
by phone) is critical.
Most importantly, your child has the right to have
an attorney present before he or she is questioned
by law enforcement. It is vital to your child's welfare
that an experienced juvenile attorney be present at
any questioning to ensure their constitutional rights,
and to prevent false or misleading statements from
being used against your child.
What are the next steps after my
child is arrested?
Contact a juvenile law attorney immediately. Your child
runs a serious risk of being swept into the juvenile
justice system if you do not have knowledgeable assistance
from an experienced
juvenile lawyer.
Following the arrest of a juvenile, a law enforcement
officer has the discretion to release the juvenile
to his or her parents, or take the child to juvenile
hall. The county probation officer has the discretion
to accept and "book" the child into juvenile
hall or not – in which case, the disposition of the
juvenile is left to the police. Unless the child was
arrested for a serious or violent felony (burglary,
robbery, violent battery, etc.), the police will often
release the child to the parents.
What happens in Juvenile court?
The Juvenile court system is very different than “regular”
courts. By law, all juvenile court proceedings are
confidential and closed to the public. Only the parents,
attorneys and probation officers are allowed. The allegations
are formally presented to the court at a hearing called
the Prima
Facia in what is known as a "petition".
If there isn’t enough evidence to detain the child,
then the Court may dismiss the petition. However, this
is a fairly low standard of proof, and many cases will
proceed to a jurisdictional hearing.
What happens after the Court detains
my children?
If the Court decides there is enough evidence in the
petition to detain your children, then a type of trial
known as a jurisdictional hearing is held. Your attorney
at the Law Offices of Johnson & Johnson will advocate
diligently, compassionately and completely for your
child's presumption of innocence, while seeking to
prove that the allegations are
false or overstated, and that the probation department
cannot prove its case. Several outcomes are possible
after a jurisdictional hearing, including: dismissal
of the allegations or return of your children with
informal probation. If, however,
the probation department meets its burden of proof,
they will retain control over your child
until a dispositional hearing. However, at all stages
of the juvenile dependency matter, an experienced juvenile
law attorney will aggressively advocate that the children
remain in your custody despite court involvement.
At the dispositional hearing, the probation officer
will present a recommendation to either commit the
child as a ward to the juvenile justice system, supervised,
or unsupervised probation. The dispositional hearing
gives your juvenile law attorney another opportunity
to argue for dismissal of the more serious allegations,
for informal probation, and the return of your child.
Can My Child Be Tried as an Adult
in Criminal Court?
RARELY. For most allegations of juvenile delinquency,
the child will proceed through the juvenile justice
system, where the rights and procedures are different
from those in adult criminal court. However, if your
child is charged with a particularly serious crime,
such as a sexual offense, burglary, robbery, gang-related
offense, or crime where a weapon was used, then the
district attorney's office may argue for your child
to be tried in adult criminal court, with the possibility
of more severe penalties.
In all cases when a child is taken into police custody,
parents should retain the services of an experienced
juvenile law attorney as soon as possible. This is
especially important when the child is accused of a
serious crime.
We are available to consult
with families throughout the San Francisco Bay Area on any legal matter related
to education law and juvenile law, including juvenile
dependency hearings and juvenile delinquency. Call
us today at 925-952-8900.
For more information see the Juvenile
Court section.
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