Why You Want Contant Law Firm in Your Court

After five years practicing criminal defense law, our first juvenile case was in 2003. These are also known as and commonly referred to as “Juvenile Delinquency” matters.  We quickly came to understand that many of the rights and procedures afforded to juveniles facing criminal charges were the same as those in the adult court. Some of these include:

• A right to a trial by judge or a jury
• Same “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard of proof
• Right to challenge improper searches and seizures of evidence
• Right to challenge improperly obtained statements, including Miranda rights violations

However, there are also many significant and notable differences which have been carved out over the years, including sentencing. See Juvenile Court Jurisdiction for more information.

Why We Do It?

Defense of juveniles soon became an important practice area, in which our office has excelled and demonstrated outstanding results.  However, the main reason we enjoy this work is that we want to protect children from themselves and help them stand up for their rights.

Kids are often shortsighted and do not consider the future.  Many care only about what they are doing that weekend.  They often don’t think about how the charges they are facing in the Juvenile Court can and will affect their future ability to get into college, graduate school and their employment prospects 5, 10 and even 20 years from now.  Unfortunately, many parents also don’t understand or consider how a juvenile court record can have detrimental effects in the future.  Many are under the common misconception that a juvenile record is “sealed” or just goes away when the child turns 18.  As a result of this, many kids take the path of least resistance and end up pleading out a case that we likely could have won. That is why it is vital to have an experienced criminal defense lawyer to navigate through the system and obtain the best possible outcome.

It is not important to us that in some cases, the child may have actually committed the crime.  Just as we tell our adult clients, what is important is whether the prosecutor can prove that they committed it, beyond a reasonable doubt, as required by the Constitution.  We are not their parents, but their lawyers. We often tell our clients’ parents that our jobs differ very much in this respect. Their job is to raise their children to be good people and contributing members of society. Ours is to protect their children in court, in an effort to keep their records clean for the future.

Ultimately, our client is the child and not the parent.  While we encourage input and discussion from the parents, our duty is to protect our juvenile client.  With proper guidance, the kids are expected to make the decisions in the case regarding their own future.