Juvenile Criminal Charges Attorney Lebanon & Mt Juliet TN
The growing emphasis on “law and order” has swamped the juvenile court systems with crimes that often were traditionally handled in more informal ways.
I have defended children charged in juvenile court in Wilson, Smith, Trousdale, Rutherford and Sumner Counties for many years and have handled all types of crimes including:
- Underage drinking and/or DUI charges
- Theft and burglary including shoplifting
- Vandalism
- Charges related to illegal drugs and prescription drugs
- Alcohol possession
- Assault or other violent acts or making terroristic threats
- Traffic offenses
- Juvenile sexual offenses
- Trespassing
- Truancy or delinquency
- Posting of threats via the internet, a crime of increasingly growing concern.
There are many misconceptions in the prosecution of juveniles. Some of these are:
1. Children’s records are kept confidential so it will not affect their future. This is a false and dangerous assumption. All driving offenses are immediately reported to the state and have an immediate impact on insurance rates and become publicly available. Juvenile convictions are routinely used to punish the children if they are charged as adults, turning others probatable mistakes into penitentiary sentences.
2. They can’t be put in jail. Some of the most violent and secure facilities in the state are juvenile facilities. These facilities routinely lack basic safety measures found in adult facilities even though they may house violent juveniles.
3. They don’t have real trials. Juveniles, when charged with criminal acts, are entitled to a trial in front of a judge where the state must prove the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, just as they would with an adult. Constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and searches to apply to children in these prosecutions.
4. If they are under 18 years of age they can’t be sent to prison. Although some counties try limit their use of the ability, others routinely see trying children as adults as the proper way to deal with juvenile crime. They liberally permit the local District Attorneys to try children in adult court, especially after the child is 16 years of age. This often subjects children to lifetime felony convictions and decades in jail.
If your family is under the gun of the prosecution of a child, give me a call. Juvenile court carries its own special set of punishments and challenges. I have defended children accused of crimes for 25 years with the same zeal with which I defend adults and your child deserves the very best and experienced defense available.
In the Defense of the Citizens Accused,