Week One (2)

 To end off the week at the Juvenile Justice Center, I was assigned with a prosecutor named Dominic Neville. He was a prosecutor who was officially moving downtown to the County Justice Center the week of the 16th of May. Prosecutor Neville started by explaining the juvenile bind over process to be. To define it, when a child of at least 14 years of age is charged with a felony, the juvenile court, after investigation and a hearing, may transfer the case for criminal prosecution. They may do this if they find there is probable cause to believe the child committed the offense alleged as well as if there are reasonable grounds to believe that a child is not responsive to care or rehabilitation in any facility for delinquent children. The safety of the community may require that the child be placed under legal restraint as well. After learning this from Prosecutor Neville, we headed upstairs to Judge Alison Floyd’s room for a probable cause hearing. Before the hearing, I learned that there is something fairly significant that the juvenile courts are allowed to do that the normal courts can not. In probable cause hearings, you don’t need to ignore what you’re saying because of hearsay. there is nothing that anyone can object to because it is a probable cause hearing. after learning about this, I believed that the case would be easy for the state, but I was mistaken. Although you are allowed to use hearsay in probable cause cases, sometimes the judge will sustain the objections and you will have to rephrase the question. Judge Floyd constantly objecting to the prosecutor's questions was interesting to see. I appreciate it because although I believe the judge is wrong in the situation, it goes to show that you never know what judge you will get and you need to learn how to adjust to that.