Collin County Texas Juvenile Justice System, A Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Take

Commonly, mothers and fathers working with the juvenile justice system find that they are wading deeper and deeper into quicksand. I understand how you feel! This short article is about giving you a criminal attorney’s take on the juvenile justice system.

To start, Collin County has a specific Court for juvenile court cases — which is the 417th District Court. Irrespective of the level of offense (for anything over a Class C), all juvenile situations are presently brought in that juvenile court. The Court is allocated a group of 3 prosecuting lawyers by the Collin County District Lawyer’s office and there is additionally a staff of juvenile probation reps which in turn help the Court and the District Attorney’s department in generating feedback and suggestions.

Possibly the most significant source of irritation for parents and defense lawyers alike is the special rehabilitative service performed by the State (by referencing the State I am combining the prosectuing lawyers along with the probation officials) whenever this comes into play with your child’s legitimate rights. The State often isn’t as concerned as they ought to be about the rights of your child — and experience tells me these people typically neglect the facts associated with the situation and proceed to the punishment or “treatment” stage of the case too soon.

Not just that, but quite often it kind of feels as though the evaluator walks away with a very unique take on a discussion with a father or mother than they may presume. I do not pretend to know precisely why, but it is not necessarily unusual for the mother and father to inform someone assessing their child or teenager something such as,

“He’s a good kid and he helps others… at times he doesn’t listen to me and that can be annoying, but he’s been doing better as of late….”

What frequently makes it into the review that is presented to the district attorney or the Judge is, “Guardian states the child does not listen to them and the parent is disappointed with the juvenile…“

I believe strongly that your child needs a voice also. Maybe your teenager did not do anything wrong whatsoever. Maybe they made a bad error or possibly hurt an individual. Regardless, isn’t one of the worst type of lessons your juvenile could take away from working with the justice process is that authority figures are able to make-up the rules as they go along? How encouraged will an adolescent end up being to do better when they think authority figures will always deal with them unfairly even when they do their best?