Lake Legal Teen Court Image: Jamesbin / iStock
News: Report
By: Connor Jenkins
T
he men and women who make the Teen Court program feasible are exemplified through local judge and attorney volunteers. The aptitude these volunteers have to quake and rumble the courtroom has been transported to the juvenile scale in order to reveal how close teen offenders came to “the edge of the wrong side of the legal system.” Ensuring all members of the courtroom are maintaining proper protocol, the Teen Court judges' obligation is to ulti- (1) mately steer defendants to the equitable path while embodying courtroom etiquette. By doing so, jurors, attorneys, or any other teen volunteer can learn this proper decorum for future reference.
Teen Court, or any other court situation, in the future,” says Roy Stevenson, who works at the law office of personal injury attorney Brent Miller, in Tavares, Florida. Judges utilize certain tactics when conversing with defendants through a lecture or providing advice for the future. It is pertinent to speak on a juvenile's level, which may require the judge to drop the legal jargon. Zachary McCormick, a local managing attorney, suggests remaining flexible and listening because being a Teen Court judge is not a free pass to “beat up” on another person. Notifying the defendant of future, felonious consequences can cause the mind's “autopilot” to kick in and alert the defendant to the fact that “something has gone seriously wrong” if caught again in another similar problematic situation.
Though it may not seem so, the main objective of these Teen Court judges is not to demoralize defendants, but to provide a solution. “I attempt to always leave them with a plan to prevent them from ever being in “I usually emphasize how they have let 48
Lake Legal News Aug. 2015