The Right To Legal Counsel

Five major court cases that influenced our treatment of juveniles today include Kent v. United States (1966), In re Gault (1967), In re Winship (1970), McKeiver v. Pennsylvania (1971) and Breen v. Jones (1975). Kent v. United States (1966) set the standards for transfers. In this case, the judge ruled Kent to adult court without consulting with the child, the child’s mother or attorney. It was this case that determined the attorney has the right to review documentation presented by the probation officer. Thanks to In re Gault (1967), juveniles how have a right to due process during any proceedings in which a juvenile is facing institutional confinement. It was also outlined in In re Gault (1967) exactly what a juveniles rights are during the entire process. Key rights are being notified of the charges brought up against them, right to counsel and cross-examination of witnesses by the attorney’s.

This civil court case takes place in a West Virginia school system located in Taylor County, when a general education high school history teacher failed to follow an IEP for Douglas Devart. During the case Devart and his parents Robert and Virginia ended up using aliases by the names of John Doe, Jane Doe and son D.D. Doe as a deterrent from the public so the family would not endure any additional embarrassment, slander, and/or liable regarding the son’s handicap. The defendants of this case were

More than ever people are losing access to justice. Even though the global economic crisis affected everyone, and every jurisdictions budget there needs to be a minimum level of funding for legal aid to protect the rights of those that cannot afford legal aid (Hainsworth, 2010). According to Hainsworth, (2010) the Canadian Bar Association has asked for national standards for legal aid, just like there are standards for health care and education. The CBA believes legal aid reform is needed to ensure access to justice for low income people, it also believes funding must be increased and national standards for eligibility and civil coverage are necessary to make the system function properly again.

According to the 2010 Plan for the Future of the New York City Family Court, the main goal of family court relies on ensuring “the highest standard of justice for each and every litigant who enters the courthouse” (2010). This is done by executing a sequence of processes and by providing different resources to individuals involved in the case. There are three major organizations that serve an important role in Family Court. These organizations ensure justice for individuals entering the family court system by providing a variety of different services. These organizations include the Administration for Children’s Services, the Legal Aid Society and the Panel of 18b Attorneys. Each of the three organizations mentioned, work to ensure the welfare of children and service to families by providing a variety of different services.

In Attorney General v. Sheriff of Suffolk County, 394 Mass. 624 (1985); Guardianship of Anthony, 402 Mass. 723 (1988), “The Court cannot exercise the function of the executive branch of the government by ordering the agency to fulfill certain obligations in a specific manner”. However, if an agency has failed to act in accordance with applicable statutory and regulatory imperatives, the court may find that said agency has abused its discretion, as measured by the arbitrary or capricious test. Care and Protection of Isaac, 419 Mass. 602, 614 (1985). The most important and apparent DCF’s abuses of discretion in this case is by removing the child away from her best comfort place, where she has been nursed by her natural mother. DCF possessed the legal custody of the child in this case, and decided to entrust the child to be housed at the prison facility, where the child’s mother is also housed. DCF considered that, according to its rules, regulation and professional practices, it was its best decision, best placement and best interest of the child.

* Parents should continue to be involved with their children and any legal proceedings that may concern them, and that legal

Kline Pruett, M., Williams Y., Insabella, G., and Little, T.D., 2003) Counselors who Are Court-Appointed as Child Custody Evaluators. Retrieved from

In his book, Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson writes of cases where the defendant was wrongfully condemned because their attorney did not do their job correctly. In some cases, this behavior extended past the original trial, all the way through any appeals available to the client. Stevenson continues by discussing how the trials were either clearly biased, or evidence was blatantly ignored. Yet often, the attorney either submitted a brief attesting to no appeal, or simply neglected to file an appeal by the deadline. Their clients not only did not receive the fair trial that our constitution mandates, but also lost any chance to take advantage of the fail-safes that were built into the legal system. When these ineffective defenders were eventually disbarred, no investigations were launched to revisit their past cases in search of legal malpractice. Instead, any cases directly impacted by their conduct were left as they were- with unfairly convicted people sitting behind bars. While the Equal Justice Initiative does what it can to help find justice for people who deserve it, they must be contacted by, or on behalf of, the victim of injustice. There are few programs to help individuals with mental illness or those without knowledge of the initiative, even though these are the people who need guidance the most.

In chapter seven of Criminal Courts discusses defense attorneys with addition to a section over indigent rights. More importantly it talks about the court case Powell v. Alabama, “The Court concluded that given the seriousness of the charges and the special circumstances present, the lack of counsel denied the defendants due process under the law… Established a right to appointed counsel in capital cases, it did not require counsel to be appointed in noncapital state prosecutions so long as the proceedings were not fundamentally unfair (Criminal Courts, 2017, p. 193). In the documentary over the case we see multiple times that the boys were not properly represented in a court of law in respect to counsel.

This law today, commonly applies to child custody issues and enforcing child protection. Although, the scope of protection and invoking the best interest of an individual is not exclusive to only children, but to any individual who cannot care for their own interests, including but not limited to insane or mentally incapacitated adults.

Thankfully for Jones, landmark cases such as In re Gault expanded the constitutional rights of juveniles. The Supreme Court stated in Gault that "neither the 14th Amendment nor the Bill of Rights is exclusively for adults alone,". This essentially included the Fifth Amendment. Such rights included; were the right to be given timely written notice of the hearing and the specific facts upon which the petition alleging delinquency is based, the right to be represented by counsel, the right against self-incrimination, and the right to confront and cross-examine the witnesses against him. The court concluded that, for purposes of the right to counsel, a "proceeding where the issue is whether the child will be found to be 'delinquent' and subjected

The primary source of the right to counsel is the Sixth Amendment. It states in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to have the Assistance of Counsel for defence. In this article, the development of the right to council will be discussed as well as when the right to council attaches to criminal procedures. The right to self- representation and the role of attorneys as it applies to right to council will be discussed as well.

Great post! I also realize a Power of Attorney might means a lot for some people down the road if anything happen. First, if there is an option, I don’t think anyone would choose to go to court. It takes times, money and energy to go through a guardianship process. And because guardianship involves a profound loss of dignity and freedom, some states laws even require that guardianship be imposed only when less restrictive alternatives, such as power of attorney have been tried or proven to be ineffective first.

For the most part, parents have the best interest of their children at heart. However, there are unfortunately many cases throughout the United States where parents are unable to, for one reason or another, take care of their children. Sometimes, this can be seen as a health issue of the parents. Sometimes, parents are unable to raise their children well due to physical, financial, and/or emotional issues. Other times, parents do not have the best interests of their children in mind and can be neglectful or abusive to them. In these circumstances, the state may become involved and step into

Although the Southern United States is considered to be the death belt of the country due to the lack of public defender programs, many other regions within the U.S. such as the West have more exceptional public defender programs. Young lawyers are usually the advocates who go to these offices and provide fair representation to poor people accused of crimes. This lack of proper representation is absent in the South, which is in need of quality