What is the name of your state? Indiana
My son @ 16 yrs old, was picked up for stealing gasoline and fleeing from an officer. He is being charged with two counts of felony D and this is his first offense. He cooperated and confessed to the police. What can the consequences be for these charges? He has been released on house arrest until the hearing. Is it wise to hire an attorney? Would counseling, community service, etc. help him between now and the hearing?
What county did this happen in? I'm a juvenile probation officer in Indiana.
It would be nice to start the counseling and community service now, since it would show the probation officer that he is really sorry he committed this offense. He'll still get court ordered to do those things later.
Here's the likely procedure of what will happen:
Since he's 16, he'll be under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. At the Initial Hearing (IH), your son will have the opportunity to request an attorney before the actual hearing starts. If he requests a court appointed attorney, they'll give him the contact info for the attorney, and will reset the IH date so that he will have time to talk to the attorney. Since he's a juvenile, he's entitled to a court appointed attorney paid for by the state.
If you and your son choose to hire an attorney on your own, the attorney should be at the hearing, and hopefully he and your son will have already decided if he will admit or deny the charges against him.
If he denies, a Fact Finding Hearing (juvenile trial) will be set, and evidence will be heard by the Court.
If he admits or is found to have committed at the Fact Finding, the probation officer will set up an appt for your son and a parent to come in for a pre-disposititional (sentencing) interview. The PO will use this interview to decide upon the terms of probation for your son. You'll get a copy of this report, and will have the opportunity to dispute the PO recommendations, but in our county, the judge usually accepts the terms we recommend since we follow the state guidelines.
Here's what a rough idea of what I'd sentence him to for these offenses: I don't have my sentencing guidelines here at home, so this is a rough idea of the terms.
1 year probation, probably about 96 hours juvenile road crew, 1 or 2 days juvenile boot camp (8 hours on a Saturday), possible counseling, 2-4 days detention at a juvenile detention facility or possible 30-60 days on Electronic Monitoring, monthly reporting to my office, as well as the standard terms of probation. Standard terms are things like "C" average in school, no unexcused school absences or tardies, gives up right to be free from searches, random urine screens, no firearms, no breaking laws, curfew, etc.
This is going to end up costing $$$. $100 admin fee, $100 initial probation user's fees, $20 a month probation fees for a total of about $420 in probation fees. The urine screens will be $30 per, electronic monitoring costs $100 to set up and then $8 a day. Detention is $100/day at the facility we use. Juvenile road crew is $50. I always emphasize to my clients that Mom and Dad might have to pay the fees since the juvenile doesn't have the money, but I expect the juvenile to pay the parents back once they have a job. The parents didn't commit the offense.
If your son violates any of the conditions of probation, he'll have a Petition to Modify (PTM) filed, and will be taken back to court to face possible additional sanctions. If the fees aren't paid, a PTM will be filed and it's back to court.
If your son completes all the terms of probation and all fees are paid, he will be terminated successfully upon his court-ordered end date. If everything is completed except for fees, sometimes the Court will go ahead and order the case closed successfully but will enter a judgement against either the juvenile or the parent. (It's against the parent if the juvenile is not yet 18 years old.)
When we close a case successfully for a juvenile, the juvenile charges can't be used against him as past history if he commits an offense once he's an adult. A few years later, the juvenile (now adult) can request to have the case expunged. This means the file gets shredded and the offense is erased from the person's record. This isn't automatic, but needs to be requested by the person.
If we close the case unsuccessfully because the juvenile didn't follow the terms of probation, if the juvenile offends as an adult, the juvenile charges can be used to show past history and therefore sentences can be longer.
Any questions?
