This updated second edition is a complete how-to guidebook for handling juvenile court cases from beginning to end. It details the tasks, skills, rules of law, and issues of strategic judgment involved in representing clients in juvenile court. If you have little or no juvenile court experience and are called upon to represent a juvenile client, this complete guide is sure to help you face the situation more in charge and at ease.
The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.
Adolescence is a distinct, yet transient, period of development between childhood and adulthood characterized by increased experimentation and risk-taking, a tendency to discount long-term consequences, and heightened sensitivity to peers and other social influences. A key function of adolescence is developing an integrated sense of self, including individualization, separation from parents, and personal identity. Experimentation and novelty-seeking behavior, such as alcohol and drug use, unsafe sex, and reckless driving, are thought to serve a number of adaptive functions despite their risks. Research indicates that for most youth, the period of risky experimentation does not extend beyond adolescence, ceasing as identity becomes settled with maturity. Much adolescent involvement in criminal activity is part of the normal developmental process of identity formation and most adolescents will mature out of these tendencies. Evidence of significant changes in brain structure and function during adolescence strongly suggests that these cognitive tendencies characteristic of adolescents are associated with biological immaturity of the brain and with an imbalance among developing brain systems. This imbalance model implies dual systems: one involved in cognitive and behavioral control and one involved in socio-emotional processes. Accordingly adolescents lack mature capacity for self-regulations because the brain system that influences pleasure-seeking and emotional reactivity develops more rapidly than the brain system that supports self-control. This knowledge of adolescent development has underscored important differences between adults and adolescents with direct bearing on the design and operation of the justice system, raising doubts about the core assumptions driving the criminalization of juvenile justice policy in the late decades of the 20th century. It was in this context that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) asked the National Research Council to convene a committee to conduct a study of juvenile justice reform. The goal of Reforming Juvenile Justice: A Developmental Approach was to review recent advances in behavioral and neuroscience research and draw out the implications of this knowledge for juvenile justice reform, to assess the new generation of reform activities occurring in the United States, and to assess the performance of OJJDP in carrying out its statutory mission as well as its potential role in supporting scientifically based reform efforts.
Volume Two of the North Carolina Defender Manual is a resource for public defenders and appointed counsel who represent poor people accused of crimes. The book focuses primarily on criminal procedure at the trial stage. Chapters cover a variety of topics, such as personal rights of the defendant, selection of the jury, opening and closing arguments, witness examination, and appeals, post-conviction litigation, and writs.
Contents: (1) Introduction: Time and Adolescence; Policy and Practice; (2) The History of Court Delay; (3) The Causes and Effects of Delayed Justice; (4) Controlling Court Delay: Legal/Professional Efforts; Managerial Efforts; (5) Controlling Juvenile Court Delay: Constitutional Provisions; Limiting Due Process for Juveniles; Legislation and Rules in the Juvenile Court; (6) Recent Trends in Delinquency Case Processing Time; (7) Delay Reduction Efforts in Three Juvenile Courts; (8) Conclusions; (9) References; Cases Cited; (10) Appendices. Charts and tables.
