South Bay criminal defense attorney

The title "Juvenile Justice" may bring to mind, conscientious professionals working hard to investigate, present evidence, and defend juveniles accused of sometimes trivial, but more than likely a serious felony, in which the Juvenile could be sent to adult criminal court, California Youth Authority (CYA), camp, be taken from their parents, or placed under the monitoring of a stranger, someone from the County Probation Department.

As noted in a profound article in the Los Angeles Times, in a front page story written by Molly Hennessy-Fiske, on June 14, 2010, a majority of juvenile cases are represented by the County Public Defender’s Office. But, a significant number of cases are handled by private attorneys who contract with the county to represent juveniles that cannot be represented by the Public Defenders Office and do not have privately retained (hired) attorneys.

The reasons for this may be many, however, it should not be lost on most families, and it certainly was brought out in the article, that the contract that these private contract attorneys have, calls for payments of $345.00 perCASE. There isn’t an attorney in the world who can do an adequate job representing someone for $345 per case.. Keep in mind this fee would include charges for murder, robbery or other serious felonies that certainly could cost an accused months if not years of their lives incarcerated. This fee includes all interviews with the minor and his/her family, reviewing police reports and interviews with witness’ (discovery), any motions that may need to be filed and trial (adjudication), if required.

Having been on the Juvenile Panel for years before the contract system was initiated I know first hand how much work goes into preparing a case and representing an accused juvenile. When I was President of the Juvenile Court Bar Association, I fought hard to keep this contracting system from being implemented. We were unsuccessful. The government claims that this system was implemented due to budgetary necessities. The county did this without taking into consideration the effect of the system ending up denying an accused juvenile the ability to defend themselves and seek "justice" in court.

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