Tampa Juvenile Defense Lawyer

Floridadefense.com Podcast - #1FDP-Juvenile Crimes

 

Brad Post, Host, Create the Movement

Mike Kenny, Attorney, Bauer, Crider and Parry

 

Brad Post, Host, Create the Movement: Welcome floridadefense.com podcast. We are speaking to Tampa juvenile defense lawyer Mike Kenny. Mike, how are you doing?

Mike Kenny, Attorney, Bauer, Crider and Parry: I'm doing very well. How are you doing?

B: Good. Good. We are just going to be talking about juvenile crimes during this series of podcasts. And the first one we’re going to do an overview of the different juvenile crimes that you guys work with.

M: Yes. The juvenile area is kind of a unique area. The state of Florida prosecutes crimes. There’s a statute, every crime, every criminal act that is that is determined to be illegal, there's a specific statute for it. So, everything that is prosecuted in an adult court can get prosecuted in juvenile court, but there's a completely different way that it's handled. They’re called delinquency actions. And if a person is convicted of committing a crime while a juvenile they’re adjudicated delinquent. They're not really convicted of a crime, so to speak, at least technically speaking.

So, there’s a whole different process involved. And it's really important if someone's involved in a juvenile matter that they seek advice and representation from a lawyer who's got some familiarity with that area. Because while a lawyer may know criminal law very well, juvenile court is a completely different arena. There’s certain practices, and obviously some policy, that a lawyer’s going need to know to most effectively represent his or her client.

So, what happens is in a juvenile case a person is either arrested, or not. If they’re arrested they’re taken to the juvenile detention center. And there is an assessment. And an assessment is – a thing called Face Sheet is drawn up, and it basically scores the particular criminal act the juveniles is accused of, as well as any prior history. That Face Sheet is going to come up with a number. And that number will tell the court whether or not this juvenile is supposed to stay in secure detention for a specific period of time - the maximum being 21 days, essentially. Or, home detention, or maybe some other pretrial limit or pretrial requirement.

So, secure detention means that the judge, if the judge looks this person's crime and determines that there is probable cause a crime has been committed, and determines that the person scores for secure detention, that person is going to stay in a juvenile detention center for 21 days. There is no bond. A person can't be bonded out. There is no amount of money that can be paid to secure person’s release until they come back to court.

Now, what a person can do, and what I have done, is lawyers can file a motion with the court, and ask the court to consider releasing the person to home detention from the juvenile detention facility. And at that point in time there could be hearing where the judge is presented with facts that demonstrate that there is no risk of harm to the public if the juvenile is released. And that the juvenile will be assuredly coming back safely to court at his next hearing. And sometimes judges will agree to release, especially if there’s some issues with the factual scenario described. A lot of times things change once police are called, and some new facts come to light. And sometimes that can be helpful in presenting some scenarios to the judge where it might be more appropriate to have a juvenile at home in the care of his parents.

And that's the first detention - secure detention. It’s the highest form detention. And the court will actually charge for any type of detention. He’ll charge the family an amount to keep that person in custody. It’s not huge amount, but the judge will make a determination if the family has an ability to pay, and then assess that person a cost-per-day for that type of detention.

The next level of detention is home detention. And that's where the judge will order that the juvenile stay at home, and have certain conditions like maybe a curfew, follow certain rules at home, and follow certain rules at school. That also will have a certain cost assessed per day. Which is usually somewhere from 1 to 3 dollars a day. To where the court will determine that that person has to pay that amount in order to have that home detention supervised by the Department of Juvenile Justice.

I mentioned the Department of Juvenile Justice. That's why when a person is involved in a juvenile matter, you’re going to want a lawyer that has some familiarity with the area. Because the Department of Juvenile Justice is a very major aspect of juvenile court. The Department of Juvenile Justice has a role to where they advise the court of what an appropriate sentence would be.

When a juvenile is arrest