This is not a Disney movie. That impassive face with the dull eyes never once brightened to see me. He never confided in me, even when his defense depended on it.

As soon as I have the signed order in hand, I head to the “at-risk” cell block to make sure my client is released. My client’s mother, waiting in the hallway, is mad at me. She thinks her son is out-of-control and needs to be locked up, and we have been working at cross-purposes throughout this case. He comes and …

One of the reasons I accept court appointments in juvenile cases – but not adult cases – is that the juveniles generally listen to you.  Even then, you can’t always take that for granted. It was thus very gratifying to read the following exchange described in a psychiatric evaluation for a juvenile client. When the evaluator asked my client about …

Summer is over, and the Public Defender Service (PDS) interns assigned to the Youth Services Center are gone. Although I never met any of them in person (they were there during the day, and I visit clients evenings and over the weekend), I will miss them very much. So will my clients. The interns were young and smart and had …

One of the questions parents of a juvenile client often ask me is the effect of a juvenile adjudication on their child’s future. The question often comes up in the context of plea negotiations. If, for example, the government has offered to reduce the charge from robbery to simple assault or theft, the parents want to know if and how …

I have a little speech I like to give to my juvenile clients. I tell them that, while I will be looking out for their legal interests as their lawyer, what happens to them pending trial or if found guilty of the offense will depend far more on what they do for themselves. I then hold up four fingers and …

My client’s mother is annoyed with me.   She disagrees with her 16-year-old son’s decision to take his case to trial, and she is convinced I am the one who talked him into it.  She’s partially right; in this particular case, I did recommend trial.  But it does not matter if the child is 16 years old or 11 years old, …

  What happens if I release him and he goes out and kills someone?  What happens if I release him and he goes out and gets himself killed? You know these questions are going through the judge’s mind every time a defense attorney argues for a client’s release.  It is the great unspoken in the court room.  It is why …

  During my first couple of weeks with the Juvenile Division at the Philadelphia Public Defender’s Office, I took what I believed to be a very strong case to trial. My client had been charged with aggravated assault against another young woman.  I had a couple of witnesses who testified that my client had actually intervened in order to break …

As a public defender in Philadelphia, I did a brief stint in the Juvenile Division representing young people accused of committing a crime. People told me before I started the rotation that I would either love working with juveniles or hate it; there didn’t seem to be any in-between. I found myself in the “love-it” category. Although I would have …

You watch him go.  You realize that, from his perspective, the future is nothing more than a quick visit with the judge, a bologna sandwich and coke for lunch, and then a trip back to the detention center to gather his things.  So yes, you think again, this time with more certainty, it will be for forever.