Teen Court

[Law Knight]

I was wondering if any of you have a Teen Court, or Youth Court as it is sometimes called, in your county.

For those of you who don't know, Teen Court is a court-like system with the goal of restorative justice. Every position, besides Judge, is performed by a teen volunteer, which can be any age from 13-18 years, that's how it is here anyway. The defendant can be any age from 11-17 years of age.

Teen Court offers the teen a clean record in exchange for completing the sentencing given out by the jury. To be accepted to the Teen Court process, the defendant must admit their offense, which is either going to be a Class 1 or Class 2 Misdemeanor.

You may be wondering what the attorneys do at this point since the defendant has already plead guilty. Well, the prosecutor works to get a worse punishment for the teen and the defense goes for a lesser punishment.

The teen can have a parent present to the hearing and he or she can be questioned as well as anyone else that was a witness to the offense.

The prosecutor and defense attorneys each suggest a punishment for the defendant in their closing statements. The punishments can be many things, from essays on anger management to how to deal with stress, depending on the case. There is also Community Service hours or as we call them "C.A.P.s" Community Action Points. They can be anywhere from 20 hours to 80 hours of community service again depending on the case.

Also included in punishments are oral apologies and written apologies. However the jury can come up with all kinds of punishments unique to the case. For instance, if a talented artist commits a crime he or she may be asked to draw a picture for the victim of the crime. The Teen Court Coordinator judges these essays or pictures to make sure they do a good job on it and not just blow it off. There is also a mandatory jury appearance the defendant must serve from 3-7 trials.

All cases are forwarded by the State's Attorney. Every person in the court room is sworn in by the bailiff, who is also a teen volunteer, for a confidentiality agreement. The volunteers for Teen Court have to sign a confidentiality notice along with their parents. As in other court proceedings, if someone leaks out who did what he or she will be suspended from the program, if they are a volunteer, and possibly tried themselves.

If there are any questions just ask, I'm sure I probably left something out in this post.

And I'm sure the process varies from Teen Court to Teen Court.

[Big Sexy]

Nope.
Am federal, doesn't exist in our system. .
Have never heard of such a thing.

[Law Knight]

Nope.
Am federal, doesn't exist in our system. .
Have never heard of such a thing.

I see. Well I'm glad I got to spread some knowledge. :cool:

[ChesCopPodz]

We do. The same court handles domestic related cases as well. What logic came up with that? I have no clue. We have a general district court for adult criminal offenses and adult traffic offenses. Why adult domestic offenses wouldn't be with the rest of the adult offenses, I don't know

[bobcraken84]

We have a place called Youth Opportunity Center. It handles most of the teen cases for our county. I really like the way they do things. Even the name itself is positive and shows that there is hope for these kids. It seems that more teen courts should take such a positive stance. What do you guys think?

[mcsap]

We have a Youth Aid panel. They can handle ANY summary offense that is recommended to them by us. It is a panel of adult volunteers who can dish all sorts of things but not lockup. If the kid completes it OK , the chaarges are never filed. If they fail , the kid is then charged.

[cntryboy0531]

We have a Youth Aid panel. They can handle ANY summary offense that is recommended to them by us. It is a panel of adult volunteers who can dish all sorts of things but not lockup. If the kid completes it OK , the chaarges are never filed. If they fail , the kid is then charged.

We have similar. It's called "teen court". On the "jury" is a group of teenagers picked from local schools, explorer troops, etc. They can recommend anything short of lockup as you said. And the judge 99% of the time will order the juvenile to the conditions the teen jury recommends. Teen court usually will impose judgement that is more harsh than juvenile court, and the state loves to use it if possible. If the teen completes all conditions, charges are dropped, and they go away with a lesson learned (hopefully). State says's it's pretty effective.