Articles related to dispositional alternatives

Is the court bound to order a certain disposition in a delinquency matter when the juvenile and the prosecutor agree to that disposition as part of an agreement? The short answer is no. The Juvenile Code requires the court to engage in certain procedures, to consider certain factors, and to order disposition in accord with certain parameters when developing and ordering a delinquency disposition. The mandates on the court cannot be delegated to the parties and they are not optional. This post describes these mandates and explores the implications for dispositional outcomes that are agreed upon by the juvenile and the prosecutor.

Have you ever been deeply enmeshed in a project, thought it was done, and when you returned with fresh eyes realized that you missed something important? That has happened for me when, for example, I painted the walls of my son’s bedroom only to walk in the next day with fresh eyes and realize that I should have painted the trim as well. And then it happened again as I was working on a chapter in the forthcoming Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act Implementation Guide and realized that there is an amendment contained in the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act (JJRA), that will take effect on December 1, 2019, that changes one piece of the recently released Juvenile Law Bulletin, Delinquency and DSS Custody without Abuse, Neglect, or Dependency: How Does that Work?. The change limits the court’s authority to order DSS custody as a component of a delinquency disposition, allowing this disposition only for juveniles under the age of 18. This limiting language creates a clear age boundary for an initial order of disposition to DSS custody in a delinquency case. However, questions remain regarding the capacity for a juvenile to remain in DSS custody pursuant to a delinquency dispositional order after turning 18.

Did you know that in a juvenile delinquency court case the juvenile may be placed in the custody of a county’s child welfare department (usually a department of social services (DSS))? A DSS placement through a delinquency action may happen in one of three ways:

• a nonsecure custody order (G.S. 7B-1902 through -1907),
• a dispositional order after the juvenile has been adjudicated delinquent (G.S. 7B-2506(1)c.), and/or
• an order appointing DSS as the juvenile’s guardian of the person (G.S. 7B-2001).

With each of these types of delinquency orders, there is not an allegation, substantiation, or adjudication that the juvenile is abused, neglected, or dependent (see my last blog post, here, discussing  delinquency as it relates to abuse, neglect, or dependency). Instead, the juvenile’s court involvement is a result of his or her alleged acts of delinquency rather than circumstances created by a parent, guardian, custodian, or caretaker. Each of these three custody orders is a type of delinquency order and not an order related to a juvenile’s abuse, neglect, or dependency. However, at times, as a result of the order placing the juvenile in DSS custody, pieces of abuse, neglect, and dependency law apply in the delinquency case.

The legal implications of placing a juvenile into DSS custody and resulting foster care as part of a delinquency mat­ter are complex – so complex, that a blog post will not do. Instead, my colleague, Jacquelyn (Jacqui) Greene and I wrote a new extensive juvenile law bulletin discussing these orders and the issues that arise with each type of order. You can access the bulletin, Delinquency and DSS Custody without Abuse, Neglect, or Dependency: How Does that Work? here.

If you’re a sports fan like me, you probably like sports movies. And if you like sports movies, you know the famous line from Jerry Maguire, “show me the money!” That line has some application to abuse, neglect, or dependency cases – specifically when a court is going to order custody or guardianship of a child who has been adjudicated abused, neglected, or dependent to a person who is not the child’s parent. The Juvenile Code requires that the court first verify that the proposed custodian or guardian “will have adequate resources to care appropriately for the juvenile.” G.S. 7B-903(a)(4), -906.1(j), -600(c).*

Over the past four months, I’ve had the opportunity to discuss the new juvenile delinquency legislation, S.L. 2015-58, with juvenile court officials from every part of the system – prosecutors, […]

 Last month, I wrote a blog post about the recently enacted Juvenile Code Reform legislation (S.L. 2015-58, HB 879), which creates several new laws affecting delinquent juveniles. The last section of the bill amends G.S. 7B-2506(12) and (20), which authorize intermittent confinement in a juvenile detention facility as a Level 1 or Level 2 dispositional alternative. Currently, the trial court must determine the timing of the intermittent confinement, but beginning December 1, 2015, it must also determine the imposition of the confinement. Although this change appears to be minor, it addresses a major issue related to juvenile dispositions – the improper delegation of the trial court’s authority, typically, to court counselors. Most of the calls I get about improper delegation of authority in juvenile court concern intermittent confinement, and particularly, how it is imposed. This post will examine how the new legislation was designed to address these concerns by changing the way district court judges impose intermittent confinement.

READ POST "Improper Delegation of Authority and Intermittent Confinement (August 26, 2015)"