Title: Providing Effective Representation for Youth Prosecuted as Adults.
Series: Bureau of Justice Assistance Bulletin
Author: Malcolm C. Young
Published: August 2000
Subject: Case Processing, Defense Services, Prosecution
16 pages
36,864 bytes

----------------------------

Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file.
To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file
available from this Web site or order a print copy from BJA at 800-688-4252.

----------------------------

About This Bulletin

This bulletin describes successes in public defenders' attempts to provide
high-quality representation to youth prosecuted in adult criminal courts. It uses
the experiences of defenders across the country to identify key elements of
defender programs that effectively meet the needs of transferred children.

----------------------------

Providing Effective Representation for Youth Prosecuted as Adults
by Malcolm C. Young, Executive Director, The Sentencing Project

In recent years, private and public defenders have handled cases involving
children automatically transferred into adult criminal court without the benefit of
independent review by a judicial officer. These automatic transfers occur under
a variety of state laws, which either assign youth charged with certain offenses
to criminal court or allow prosecutors to decide who will be prosecuted as
adults.[1] 

Child advocates and public defenders are alarmed about automatic transfers.
Juveniles prosecuted in adult criminal court include a high percentage of abuse
victims, mentally ill and educationally limited children, and children of color.[2]
Children convicted in adult courts face more severe, often mandatory, penalties
than children convicted in juvenile courts. In some states, these children stand to
lose collateral rights such as the right to vote before they have had a chance to
enjoy them.[3] These children's cases must be handled judiciously because so
much is at stake for both defendants and the state.

Defense attorneys, however, including organized public defenders, are
ill-prepared to handle the cases of children who appear in criminal courts. They,
like judges, prosecutors, and probation officers assigned to criminal courts, are
generally untrained and inexperienced in recognizing the needs and
characteristics of young defendants. In addition, almost no one involved has
thought through the administrative, logistical, or case-handling implications of
moving children, many of them detained, from juvenile to criminal courthouses.

The policymakers who created this new class of child defendants failed to
address the implications of prosecuting youngsters in courts designed for adults
under procedures that linked adult defendants with adult jails, bail and bonding,
attorneys familiar with adult behavior, and adult correctional programs. Children
have been relegated to adult court on the theory that the enhanced punishment
of adult court will benefit society more than the individualized therapeutic
approach that is the juvenile court ideal.

It has not helped matters that most children transferred into adult court have
been moved without fanfare. Young children charged with violent crimes gain a
great deal of media attention. But many children are transferred for relatively
minor drug, weapons possession, or property crimes.[4] These children appear
one or two at a time before preliminary hearing and felony court judges who
may have 30 or more felony cases involving adults on their docket that day. As
a result, these children are almost invisible, too small a part of the judge's
caseload to merit special attention or treatment.

Public defender offices have responded in different ways to the automatic
transfers. Some have initiated new programs with new staff; others have taken
no special action. Some defenders' efforts to change the way children are
represented in criminal court have failed; other efforts have worked, but under
such unique circumstances that they are not universally applicable. Some public
defenders developing new programs have encountered staff who resist
assignments that take them back and forth between juvenile and criminal courts.
Others have discovered that it is difficult to forge a collaboration between social
workers from juvenile court and attorneys in criminal court. 

After a review of leading defender programs in the country, some defenders
observed how difficult it has been for them to form a different model of
representation or to be the prime mover in changing the daily routine of court
and their own office. After all, they noted, the usual function of defense
attorneys is to attack the case of the opposing party rather than put an
affirmative plan in place for their own clients.[5] Moreover, defenders are often
skeptical of reforms that hurt their own clients, and the "reform" of prosecuting
children as adults does nothing to allay that skepticism.

Despite these problems there have been successes in public defenders' attempts
to provide high-quality representation to youth prosecuted in adult courts. This
bulletin describes these successes and identifies the key elements of defender
programs that effectively meet the needs of transferred children.

The Work of the Model Program Advisory Team

The task of defining the elements of a defender advocacy program for juveniles
transferred to criminal court was undertaken by a committee of experienced
advocates and defenders, the Model Program Advisory Team. This team met
in Miami, Florida, on February 22-23, 1999, and again in Chicago, Illinois, on
July 28-29, 1999. It heard from representatives of both established and new
defender programs serving children in adult courts and reviewed documents
between meetings.

After reviewing programs from across the country, the advisory team identified
the elements it considered essential for a strong, effective public defender
program serving youth prosecuted as adults. It concluded that no single model
would work for a majority of defender programs. It also recognized that most
defender programs are limited in the number of new staff they can hire to
represent children in criminal courts and in the extent of program changes they
can make on short notice. The advisory team recommended program elements
for defenders to consider when designing new programs. If adopted at the
outset, these elements could be augmented as the program matures.

The advisory team also recognized that defenders who represent children in
criminal court have concerns about issues that are beyond their direct control.
For example, in some jurisdictions one court or judge is assigned all cases of
juveniles transferred to adult court.[6] Advisory team members disagreed
among themselves about the wisdom of this policy, the implementation of which
is controlled by other parties in the court system, and refrained from making a
recommendation. The advisory team decided to make recommendations that
defenders, with adequate resources, are able to implement on their own and to
endorse specific elements that are adaptable to any programmatic structure.
These elements are organized into four categories:

o Defining the scope of defender representation of youth transferred into adult
criminal court.

o Forming and maintaining a stable team of juvenile defenders.

o Ensuring child-focused advocacy.

o Supplying the public and policy-makers with information.

Defining the Scope of Defender Representation of Youth Transferred Into
Adult Criminal Court

Most defender programs recognize that the needs and structure of offices that
represent children in juvenile court differ from those that represent adults in
criminal court. The advisory team concluded that the needs and structure of a
defender program that serves children in adult court are different as well. Its
members heard of failed attempts to provide children in adult criminal courts the
same attorneys who represented them in juvenile court. 

The advisory team concluded that representing children prosecuted as adults
requires a blend of the services provided in both adult and juvenile courts,
taking into account factors such as the location of services, the logistics of
having children in criminal courtrooms, and the special needs of children as they
participate in their defense. The scope of representation changes for these
children. The following sections describe the elements of a program that
provides juveniles with adequate representation in adult court.

A multidisciplinary team approach to representation. The overarching
recommendation to defender programs representing children transferred into
criminal court is to adopt a team approach with multidisciplinary capabilities.
The advisory team found that children present a variety of issues and challenges
that require time and expertise that few attorneys have. Each child's defense
team will differ, as will the time required of each team member. Defender
programs should have access to social workers, child psychologists,
investigators, and other service professionals who know about residential,
clinical, educational, and treatment resources available in the community and
through private and state agencies. The defendant's team must use these
resources as sources of information about its young client.

Lawyers working with children encounter problems that their adult clients have
compensated for or overcome. Many transferred children have suffered trauma,
loss, or abuse, which may not have been diagnosed, and which may interfere
with their ability to communicate. They often suffer from behavioral problems,
family crises, poverty, learning disabilities, asthma or other health problems,
alcohol or drug abuse, or emerging mental illness.

In addition, most lawyers trained for practice in adult criminal court are
unfamiliar with the field of child development. Adequate representation requires
defenders to understand and explain a child's competency to waive his or her
rights, to make an admission, or to confess. An attorney representing a child
must be able to explain how child development issues apply to the case as part
of a defense. Having professionals on the team with training in these areas is
essential.

Moreover, adequate representation requires that attorneys have access to
community, educational, and treatment resources suitable and available for
children. The defense attorney cannot assume that adult probation and medical
staff experts will be any better prepared to work with youngsters in their own
professional areas than will be the criminal court prosecutor or judge. Few
attorneys have the skills to meet these requirements. Few have the time to call
the various program resources, to understand and investigate child abuse, or to
make appropriate referrals to a drug or alcohol program. And even fewer have
the time to obtain vital information from a confused, inarticulate child.

To ensure a successful team approach, lawyers must work with social workers
and other nonlawyer staff, such as paralegals or sentencing experts. The
advisory team recognized that some defenders are not used to working with
professionals from other fields, so integration and collaboration may be difficult
to achieve. Public defender office staff may have encountered difficulty defining
the roles of different professions in the process, but they must do so for the
program to work.

Vertical representation. The advisory team's second major recommendation for
defender advocacy programs for children is to incorporate a vertical model of
representation. Vertical representation means assigning one attorney, or
attorney team, to a defendant from the outset through the conclusion of the
case. By contrast, in horizontal representation a defendant is represented by the
lawyers assigned to different courts that the case is heard by, so each stage
involves a different lawyer. Horizontal representation is common in large public
defender jurisdictions.

Vertical representation has obvious advantages for most defendants,
particularly children who have the greatest need for continuity in representation.
Children are more dependent upon adult support, they need time to build trust
and to open channels for communication, and they are likely to become
depressed and despondent while awaiting trial. Every successful program
reviewed by the advisory team employed some form of vertical representation,
even in offices that were set up to provide horizontal representation to adult
felony clients.[7]

Recognizing that vertical representation is not possible in all defender offices,
the advisory team proposed that the team approach be used to provide vertical
representation by nonlawyer staff. A student, intern, or social worker can be
assigned to a juvenile defendant and brief newly appointed case attorneys. This
approach seems to work effectively in several offices.[8]

Early representation. The advisory team recommended that representation
begin at the earliest moment possible. A child's memory can be unreliable;
therefore, a defender's office must work with its young clients to identify
witnesses, gather evidence, prepare motions, learn about their families, and
begin to explore educational and sentencing options as soon as possible. In
most public defender offices, counsel should have contact with child defendants
immediately after arrest and be present at the first court appearance. In
jurisdictions with community defender offices, representation could begin before
arrest or arraignment, when defendants or their intermediaries contact the
defender agency. Early representation is key to a defender office establishing a
productive relationship with its young clients.

Early and sustained efforts to obtain pretrial release. Defender programs serving
transferred children can provide early and repeated advocacy for release from
detention or jail on bond or with special conditions. Programs must be designed
to enable presentation of bond motions at appropriate points in the criminal
court proceedings. Programs should take into account that the information
required at a bond hearing for a child is different from information about income
and property required at a bond hearing for an adult. Defense teams must be
familiar with alternative programs and probation services available to children,
as well as the services and requirements of child welfare agencies.

Caseload limits for attorneys and other staff. The caseloads of attorneys and of
social workers or other staff in programs serving transferred children should be
lower than the caseloads of attorneys handling adult felony cases in the same
offices. The advisory team has not established recommended caseloads limits
for program staff.

Method of identifying juvenile-aged defendants; communication between
juvenile court and criminal court defenders. In some jurisdictions, children who
are to be automatically transferred to criminal court appear first in juvenile court
until a transfer decision has been made by the changing authority.[9] For these
children, their defenders in juvenile court ordinarily initiate a file, conduct client
interviews, and collect case and personal information about the defendant.
Defender programs must decide whether the attorney assigned in juvenile court
will represent the client in criminal court, taking along the file information.[10] If
the attorney does not continue to represent the client in adult court, a
mechanism must be established for prompt transmittal of case information to the
attorney who will represent the child after transfer to criminal court.

Perhaps more challenging are cases in jurisdictions in which children who are
automatically transferred to criminal court never appear in juvenile court. The
criminal court defender has no advance notice that a child will be appearing in
the preliminary or first appearance court. Defender programs in these
jurisdictions must design a mechanism to alert criminal court defenders that a
child's case has entered the system and that appropriate services should be
provided on schedule.

In either case, the advisory team re-commended that a child's case file be
marked clearly to indicate the defendant's age and status as a youth in adult
criminal court. Data management systems should be modified to identify and
process information for a child's case in criminal court.

Provision of expert services for children. Children in juvenile court are
frequently evaluated by court-appointed experts, and mechanisms and funding
are set up to provide those services. Defendants in adult criminal court are not
routinely evaluated except to answer specific questions to inform an attorney of
their competency to assist in their defense. Defender programs must ensure that
children in criminal court are provided with appropriate independent and
qualified assessments and expert evaluations that are equal to the services
provided to children in juvenile court.

The advisory team learned that defender programs in some jurisdictions have
convinced funding authorities that the costs of defense evaluations of children
transferred to adult criminal court should be drawn from the same budget that
pays for these services in the juvenile court system. Doing so ensures that
neither criminal courts nor defender agencies are unfairly burdened because of
a prosecutor's decision to charge a child as an adult.

Team resources for dispositional/sentence planning. Defender programs should
include staff who have the skills necessary to ensure children are provided
vigorous advocacy at sentencing. This provision usually requires participation
by social workers, experts in child developmental and educational issues, and
professionals who can develop mitigation arguments and alternative sentencing
plans for children in plea discussions and postconviction.

Appropriate appellate resources. Appeals of juvenile court decisions are
notoriously rare. However, with the increased consequences for children
sentenced in criminal court, and with new and hastily written statutes inviting
challenges to criminal court decisions, defender programs should be able to
take up cases and issues on direct and interlocutory appeals. In addition,
prosecutors in states that allow for reverse waiver or decertification frequently
appeal rulings returning children to juvenile court. Therefore, programs must be
prepared to defend appeals brought against their juvenile clients.

Forming and Maintaining a Stable Team of Juvenile Defenders

In forming a program to defend children prosecuted as adults, the overriding
goal is to develop a cadre of attorneys, social workers, investigators, and
others to provide the representation needed by these children. Two program
elements, assignment status and salary parity, were recommended by the
advisory team.

Assignment status. Representing a child in adult criminal court is a challenging
and demanding assignment. Attorneys who staff defender programs for youth
prosecuted in criminal court should be consistently and, to the extent possible,
exclusively assigned to represent children in delinquency and criminal cases.
Attorneys who find representing young defendants in a tough punitive court
system professionally satisfying should be selected for these assignments. 

Salary parity. Program staff should have salary parity with colleagues with
similar experience and responsibilities who litigate major adult felony cases.

Ensuring Child-Focused Advocacy

The advisory team emphasized that defenders must recognize that representing
a child is qualitatively different from representing an adult. This work requires a
concentration on and familiarity with different bodies of knowledge, as well as
traditional litigation skills. Programs designed to serve children prosecuted as
adults must provide lawyers and other professionals special information and
resources. Several elements make up such a program:

Assessment. Programs must have the testing resources, staff, materials, and
screening instruments to assess delinquent behavior and the educational and
mental health needs of their clients and to inventory their clients' strengths and
internal resources. These programs must have the funds to obtain consultants
and expert witnesses.

Communication with the client. Staff must be motivated to work with children
and allowed sufficient time to get to know their young clients, their situations,
and their cases, as well as build relationships with them. This element is a critical
part of providing early representation, as previously discussed in the section on
a multidisciplinary team approach to representation.

Knowledge of children's issues. Staff in programs representing children in
criminal court need to know about the susceptibility of children to influences
from accomplices and the intricacies of gang involvement. They should be
familiar with the research on issues such as the credibility of children's
testimony, how these issues and other factors relate to police interrogation
strategies, and the reasons juvenile confessions are often suspect. Staff should
be familiar with youth culture, such as the role of gangs, peer pressure, and drug
use in influencing children's behavior, and with dysfunctional or pathological
family dynamics.

Information about the decision-making limitations of a child. The advisory team
noted the difficulty of having a child as a client who must participate in making
legal and strategic decisions. Program staff must be familiar with issues of
competency, the emotional and cognitive limitations of children, and their own
ethical responsibilities to child clients.

Communication with a child's family. Children are members of families, be they
traditional, extended, or headed by a nonrelative. Whatever the structure, it is
important to form a relationship with the child's family. Programs must account
for this activity, teaching staff how to develop relationships with adults who are
important to their clients.

Ability to hold service agencies accountable. Defenders must carry their clients'
causes to the agencies responsible for providing support and services, such as
schools, mental health clinics, and social service agencies. Often, these agencies
have failed the children now charged with criminal offenses. Under new policies
and legislation, some school districts routinely suspend children arrested by
police or convicted on criminal charges. The children's best interests and
criminal defense strategy often require that these decisions be reversed or
modified. A defender program may need access to civil attorneys to guarantee
their clients' rights.

Different substantive defenses. Children may use defenses rarely employed in
adult cases, including infancy, incompetence, lack of culpability, or lack of
criminal intent. For children, defense attorneys need to be aware that
incompetence may be based on developmental psychological issues, rather than
mental illness, and that the measures of competency used for adults in the
criminal justice system may not hold the same value for children. Programs need
to keep legal staff aware of these defenses.

Pleadings libraries. Programs for children who are prosecuted as adults should
house libraries of special pleadings for children in juvenile and criminal courts.

Means to protect children's frail egos. Many judges and other court staff speak
condescendingly, negatively, or critically to children. Programs can offset the
damage done by people who are careless of what they say in front of children
and by courts that allow child defendants to hear diagnoses and prognoses that
they should not hear. Programs must allow their staff time to prepare children
for what they might have to do or say in court and to help them understand the
proceedings.

Access to resources for children. Communities provide children with limited
resources. Program staff must acquire the latest information about available
services and resources to keep these children out of jail. This activity is vital in
programs that take sentencing work seriously.

Supplying the Public and Policymakers With Information

The fate of defender clients does not rest solely in each court case, but rather in
the marketplace of public opinion. A defender program that aspires to serve
children transferred to adult court must inform the public about the nature of
children in juvenile and criminal courts. An effective defender program includes
three elements that inform public opinion.

Information on racial disparity and other issues of concern. A disproportionate
number of children transferred to adult court are youth of color.11 A defender
program for transferred children should collect data that can inform the public
about trends, disparities, and irregularities in sentencing outcomes that relate to
ethnicity or class. In addition, it is believed that learning disabilities and mental
health problems affect a large number of children who are transferred to adult
court. Many transfers are for nonviolent offenses. By documenting these facts,
defender programs may be able to persuade lawmakers to develop effective,
less costly sanctions for youthful offenders and to reject automatic transfer to
adult criminal court, mandatory sentencing for children, and punitive
incarceration of children in all but exceptional cases.

Preservation of the voice of the child. Children prosecuted as adults have
compelling stories that offer a context for their unlawful conduct. Their stories
suggest that responses other than prosecution and punishment would improve
community safety. Defender programs are encouraged to inform the media and
the public about the immaturity of the offenders they represent. In so doing,
they may reduce the fear that drives current juvenile justice policy.

Networking with parents and community organizations. Programs should
maintain ties with the parents of former clients and community groups,
especially those that have had positive experiences with program clients.

Conclusion

The prosecution of children in adult criminal courts poses particular challenges
to defense counsel and to public defender offices. Children are different from
adults and their representation in criminal court requires different skills,
knowledge, and resources than those typically provided adults. They need
multidisciplinary services, which means the support of lawyers, social workers,
and other professionals whose services are not frequently required for adult
defendants. Their cases should be handled on a different schedule. Their
attorneys need access to resources that meet children's needs. Children in the
adult court present different legal issues for resolution. They require more time
and persistence to interview. Even the simple logistics of identifying their cases
early in the criminal court process requires special communications among
defender staff.

In this report, senior staff from public defender offices who have attempted to
address the unique problems encountered when representing children in adult
criminal court have defined the elements of a defender program that starts to
meet these challenges. By incorporating the elements described in this report
into their own defender programs, defenders, court administrators, and local
government officials should be able to minimize or circumvent many of the
problems posed by the prosecution of children in adult court.

----------------------------

Model Program Advisory Team 

David Addison, Assistant Public Defender
Youthful Defendant Unit 
Office of the State Public Defender
Baltimore, Maryland

Elizabeth Clarke, Director
Juvenile Justice Initiative of Illinois and 
Juvenile Justice Counsel Cook County Public Defender 
Chicago, Illinois

Bernardine Dohrn, Director
Children and Family Justice Center Northwestern University Legal Clinic
Chicago, Illinois

Steven A. Drizin, Staff Attorney
Northwestern University Legal Clinic
Chicago, Illinois

S. Rebecca Holland, Legal Director
The Osborne Association
Brooklyn, New York

Monica Mahan, MSW
Northwestern University Legal Clinic
Chicago, Illinois

Carlos Martinez, Director of  Development
Law Offices of Bennett H. Brummer 
Public Defender of Dade County
Miami, Florida

Marie Osborne, Chief, Juvenile Division
Law Offices of Bennett H. Brummer 
Public Defender of Dade County
Miami, Florida

Patricia Puritz, Director
Juvenile Justice Center
American Bar Association
Washington, D.C.

David Rosen, Chief
Juvenile Special Defense Unit 
Defender Association of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Randolph N. Stone, Director
Mandel Legal Aid Clinic 
University of Chicago Law School
Chicago, Illinois

Malcolm C. Young, Executive Director
The Sentencing Project
Washington, D.C.

For Further Information


To receive additional information about the work of the Model Program
Advisory Team, contact:

The Sentencing Project
Malcolm C. Young, Executive Director
514 Tenth Street NW. 
Suite 1000
Washington, DC 20004
202-628-0871
Fax: 202-628-1091
E-mail:myoung@sentencingproject.org

For information about Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) grants and programs,
contact:

Bureau of Justice Assistance
810 Seventh Street NW.
Washington, DC 20531
202-514-5947
World Wide Web: www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA

Bureau of Justice Assistance Clearinghouse
P.O. Box 6000
Rockville, MD 20849-6000
1-800-688-4252
World Wide Web: www.ncjrs.org

Clearinghouse staff are available Monday through Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.
eastern time. Ask to be placed on the (BJA) mailing list.

U.S. Department of Justice Response Center
1-800-421-6770 or 202-307-1480

Response Center staff are available Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
eastern time.

----------------------------

Notes

1. The laws and procedures that move children into adult criminal court vary
from state to state, as does the terminology used to describe this movement:
automatic transfer, waiver up, certified, and direct file. Descriptions such as
reverse waiver and decertified apply to the process of returning children to the
jurisdiction of the juvenile court. For a state-by-state analysis of transfer
provisions, see Griffin, P., P. Torbet, and L. Szymanski, 1999, Trying Juveniles
as Adults in Criminal Courts: An Analysis of State Transfer Provisions,
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, NCJ 172836. 

2. Males, M., and D. Macallair, 2000, The Color of Justice: An Analysis of
Juvenile Adult Court Transfers in California, San Francisco, CA: Justice Policy
Institute, January, pp. 3-4. This report analyzes outcomes for juvenile
defendants transferred to criminal court jurisdiction after a judicial transfer
hearing in California. Within data limitations, it found that the Los Angeles
County transfer rate for minority violent arrestees was twice the rate for white
violent arrestees (p. 6). There is no reason to believe that a mandatory or
discretionary transfer process instigated by police or prosecutorial decisions
would produce less racially disproportionate outcomes than a judicial hearing
process, which is usually initiated by the prosecution. 

For a report of disproportionality in automatic transfers initiated by prosecutors,
see Schiraldi, V.; and J. Zeidenberg, 1999, The Florida Experiment: An
Analysis of the Impact of Granting Prosecutors Discretion to Try Juveniles as
Adults, San Fransisco, CA: Justice Policy Institute, July. Black youths are 2.3
times more likely to be transferred to adult court (p. 4).

3. Human Rights Watch and The Sentencing Project, 1998, Losing the Vote:
The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States, New
York, NY, and Washington, DC.

4. Amnesty International estimated that, in 1997, more than 200,000 children in
the United States were prosecuted in adult criminal court.

5. These problems were vividly highlighted at the second meeting of the Model
Program Advisory Team, Chicago, Illinois, July 28-29, 1999.

6. New York City assigns "juvenile offenders" to a "Youth Part" court in four
boroughs. One judge hears the cases of all juveniles transferred into adult court
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

7. The Juvenile Special Defense Unit, Defender Association of Philadelphia,
assigns an attorney and social worker to each juvenile-aged defendant charged
in criminal court. This team remains with its client through all trial stages and, if
successful in obtaining a reverse waiver to juvenile court, follows the client there
to continue representation. In contrast, both criminal and juvenile units of the
office are organized to provide horizontal representation. The State Public
Defender Office in Baltimore, Maryland, assigns a lawyer and social worker to
a juvenile-aged defendant prosecuted in adult criminal court. The assigned
lawyer continues to represent the youth if, after a reverse waiver hearing, the
youth is waived back to juvenile court. If the youth remains in adult criminal
court, the lawyer passes the case to a criminal court trial attorney before
relinquishing responsibility for it.

8. The Juvenile Transfer Advocacy Unit of the Cook County (Chicago, Illinios)
Public Defender assigns a "litigation assistant" or social worker to juvenile-aged
defendants automatically transferred to criminal court. That person interviews
the youth shortly after arrest, accompanies the youth to preliminary hearing
courts, and then proceeds to work with the trial attorney in an office that
otherwise is organized on a horizontal representation model.

9. For example, Florida transfer provisions allow the prosecutor 21 days to
make a transfer decision, during which time the child is under the juvenile
court's jurisdiction. In other states, such as Illinois, children whose prosecution
as an adult is determined solely on the charge against the child and the child's
age are never under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court.

10. Some defender offices that have tried both arrangements report finding
juvenile defenders ill-equipped to handle plea negotiations and procedural
issues in criminal court, whereas criminal court attorneys are poorly informed
about resources for children, developmental issues, and other requirements for
working with youth. A senior public defender cites union and seniority issues
that cloud the decision on which attorneys should represent children in criminal
court.

11. See note 2.

----------------------------

This document was prepared by The Sentencing Project, under grant number
98-DD-BX-0082, awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of
Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and
conclusions or recommendations expressed in this document are those of the
author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the
U.S. Department of Justice. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is a component
of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes the Bureau of Justice
Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for Victims of Crime.

NCJ 182502
August 2000