Juvenile Justice

Juvenile crime is every parent's nightmare. Your child is arrested for a crime and has been taken to the juvenile detention center. If your child is not released into your custody, the court will conduct a detention hearing within two business days. As a practical matter this means you will have a detention hearing either on Monday or Thursday. If your child is not released another detention hearing will be held every 10 days. While this process is happening, the state will begin its case against your child, which may involve charges being brought against your child. Your child has a right to a trial by jury, trial by judge, or can accept a plea bargain agreement. If, after a trail or plea bargain, your child is found to have engaged in delinquent conduct (in other words, found guilty) punishment will be assessed. Punishment range is: probation in the home, probation out of the home (such as a boot camp program), or incarceration in the Texas Youth Commission. If your child has committed a serious offense, your child could be transferred to adult prison after serving time in TYC or your child could be tried as an adult.
Because of the serious nature of a criminal accusation against your child, we recommend you hire an attorney who is familiar with juvenile criminal work and who has a good working relationship with the probation officers, the juvenile prosecutor, and the juvenile judge.

Please realize the information contained on this web site should not be construed as legal advice nor does it create an attorney-client relationship between us. It is simply here as a means for me to provide you some basic information for you to use when deciding on whether or not you need to hire an attorney. Because each case is different, it would be impossible for us to provide legal advice on a web site.