What You Should Know About Dealing With Juvenile Court System

Interviewer: What unique issues will the parent or the child face when they’re dealing with the juvenile court system?

Offenses at a School or School Related Function

Amir Ladan: In juvenile court there are other considerations involved. For example, in many cases the juvenile’s school can get involved. If the conduct that’s alleged was involved either at school or a school related function, even if it’s not on campus, they can suspend or expel the student from school.

Schools are having more and more behaviors that they are putting under the “zero tolerance” policies. You can get accused of something that you think is relatively minor, and then find yourself suspended or expelled from school. Additionally, the offender has to deal with the collateral consequences of not being able to go to his or her normal school. Juveniles can also have their licenses suspended for a variety of crimes that doesn’t apply to adults in adult court.

License Suspension

Interviewer: What kinds of offenses would result in a juvenile having their license suspended, where adults wouldn’t have that happen to them?

Amir Ladan: Some of the more obvious considerations would be drug and alcohol charges. In adult court, if someone’s charged with a misdemeanor marijuana offense, they don’t lose their license unless their adjudicated guilty. In juvenile court, the same doesn’t apply.

Another circumstance is an alcohol offense. Obviously, you can’t possess alcohol until you’re 21 years old. Generally speaking, any alcohol related offense has the possibility of causing a license suspension. These are a few of those considerations you have to look at on a case-by-case basis, depending on what the client’s charged with.

Reporting Juvenile Charges to the School

Interviewer: Does the parent or the child have a duty to inform the school if they are charged with an illegal offense?

Amir Ladan: A lot of the schools have student codes of conduct that outline what the requirements are. I would say that if that is a concern, I would definitely want the client or prospective client to talk to me about it. We can certainly pull up the code of conduct and review it together to make sure that they’re complying with whatever those requirements are.