Florida Juvenile Defense Lawyer: How the System Works and What Defense Counsel Does

If a child was just arrested in Florida, the case usually goes to the circuit court's juvenile proceedings. If the child is detained, a judge decides within 24 hours whether the child stays in detention. The court later decides whether the child committed the offense and what happens next. A defense lawyer can act for the child at every stage.

Most parents reading this page are carrying one specific event: a phone call from a police station, a child who did not come home, or papers naming a hearing date. You may not yet know where your child is being held, what the charge actually is, or whether school will hear about it. What you want is the sequence: which hearing comes first, who decides, and what the law lets that person decide. This page lays out Florida's juvenile delinquency process in that order, from custody through detention, transfer to adult court and disposition, and explains what defense counsel does at each step.

How Florida's Juvenile Justice System Is Structured

Florida gives the circuit court exclusive original jurisdiction over proceedings in which a child is alleged to have committed a delinquent act. These are juvenile proceedings within the circuit court, separate from an adult criminal case. When a child is taken into custody before any charge is filed, the circuit court for the county where the child was taken into custody handles those first steps.

The court's power over a child lasts beyond the 18th birthday. Unless the court ends its jurisdiction by its own order, it keeps jurisdiction to dispose of the case until the child reaches 19. Over a child on probation, that jurisdiction runs until age 19. Over a child committed to the department, it runs until age 21, so the child can complete the commitment program, including conditional release supervision. The court may end its jurisdiction at any time.

A few terms come up again and again on this page:

• Petition: the formal charging document in a juvenile case.
• Detention: holding a child before the case is decided, either in a secure facility or under supervised release at home.
• Risk assessment: the department's evaluation that the court considers when deciding on detention.
• Adjudicatory hearing: the trial, where the court decides whether the child committed the offense.
• Disposition: the court's order after that finding, such as probation or commitment.
• Restrictiveness level: the level of placement at which a committed child is held, which the department recommends and the court sets.
• Diversion: resolving a case outside the formal petition process.
• Transfer: moving a child's case to adult criminal court.
• Sealing: restricting who can see a record.

The federal juvenile justice case flow overview notes that case processing varies even within a state from community to community.

Arrest, Intake, and the First Hours After a Child Is Taken Into Custody

Florida's detention law sets the clock. A child taken into custody and placed into detention care must have a hearing within 24 hours after being taken into custody, subject to another provision of the same chapter. That hearing answers two questions: whether there is probable cause that the child committed the charged act, and whether continued detention is needed.

The court considers the results of the department's risk assessment and applies the statute's detention criteria. The risk assessment is a starting point, not the final word. The court may order a placement more or less restrictive than the risk assessment indicates, but if it does, it must state clear and convincing reasons in writing. For some children, the statute sets a presumption that the child presents a risk to public safety and must be held in secure detention before the adjudicatory hearing. That presumption applies unless the court enters a written order that the child would not present that risk on supervised release detention care, which is the at-home alternative.

Florida's length-of-detention rules add further limits:

• No child may be held in detention care longer than 24 hours unless the court orders it. That order must include specific instructions directing the child's release.
• The order is a final order that can be appealed. Those appeals take precedence over other pending matters.
• If a detained child's petition is filed, the child must be arraigned within 48 hours after the filing.
• Except as the statute provides, a child may not be held in secure detention care under a special detention order for more than 21 days unless the court has commenced an adjudicatory hearing in good faith. For certain serious charges, on good cause shown, the court may extend secure detention for up to an additional 21 days.

Learning that a court can hold a child before any trial is hard on a parent. These time limits are part of what defense counsel watches from the first day.

On counsel, Florida law states that a child is entitled to representation at all stages of delinquency proceedings. If the child and the parents are indigent and unable to employ counsel, the court shall appoint counsel. Counsel may advise the child at any time after arrest, including before a detention hearing while the child is in secure detention. If the parents are not indigent but refuse to employ counsel for an indigent child, the court appoints counsel for the detention hearing and until counsel is provided. After that, the court orders the parents to obtain private counsel. A parent who willfully fails to follow that order faces civil contempt.

What Defense Counsel Does in a Florida Juvenile Case

Defense counsel's work changes with the stage of the case.

At the detention hearing, counsel can address the risk assessment and the statute's criteria, and present information about the child's home, school and family that bears on whether a less restrictive placement fits. Counsel also tracks the detention time limits described above.

Before and at the adjudicatory hearing, counsel examines the state's evidence and cross-examines its witnesses. Counsel can also raise legal challenges, including to how evidence was gathered or how statements were obtained.

At disposition, counsel can present the child's background and argue for the sanctions the law allows short of commitment, or address the restrictiveness level if commitment is in play.

If transfer to adult court is sought, counsel can contest the motion at the waiver hearing and present evidence on the criteria the court must weigh.

This page describes that role in general terms. It does not predict the result of any case, discuss what legal help costs, or address what a particular child should say to police. It also does not cover Florida's rules on police questioning of minors.

Diversion Programs and Alternatives to Adjudication in Florida

Diversion means resolving a juvenile matter outside the formal path of petition, adjudicatory hearing and disposition. Typically, the child completes set requirements instead.

The basic framework for whether a given child's case can be diverted turns on four things:

• the offense charged,
• the child's prior history,
• the criteria of whatever program exists where the case is pending, and
• the decisions of the officials who run it.

What completing a program means for the case and the record also depends on that program's terms. Because programs differ by location and their rules are not set out in the statutes this page cites, this page makes no statement about the eligibility rules or record effect of any specific Florida diversion program. The program's own terms, and the officials who run it, are where those answers come from.

Many parents reasonably wonder whether diversion is still possible once a petition has been filed. That question turns on the program and the stage of the case, and it is one a defense lawyer can raise early.

Transfer to Adult Court: When Florida Law Allows It and What the Hearing Involves

Florida has several routes by which a child's case can reach adult court. None of them is automatic for most cases, and each depends on age, the offense and specific findings.

Voluntary waiver. The court shall transfer the case if, before the adjudicatory hearing begins, the child demands in writing to be tried as an adult. The child must be joined in that demand by a parent, or by a guardian or guardian ad litem if no parent is available.

Involuntary discretionary waiver. The state attorney may file a motion to transfer if the child was 14 or older at the time of the alleged act. This route is subject to the mandatory-waiver provision.

Involuntary mandatory waiver. In the circumstances the statute defines, the state attorney shall do one of three things:

• request transfer,
• give the court written reasons for not doing so, or
• proceed by direct file.

On that request, the court either orders transfer or gives written reasons for not doing so.

At a waiver hearing, the court must consider the statute's criteria. Those criteria include the child's sophistication and maturity, prior periods of probation and prior commitments to institutions. A transfer decision must be in writing, with findings on every criterion. It is reviewable on appeal.

Direct file. Under Florida's discretionary direct file provision, the state attorney may file an information, with separate rules by age:

• Ages 14 or 15. The state attorney may file when the public interest requires that adult sanctions be considered. The offense must be on the statute's list, which includes arson, aggravated battery and certain grand theft of a motor vehicle with a prior adjudication for that offense. The list also covers attempts and conspiracies.
• Ages 16 or 17. The state attorney may file on the same public-interest judgment. However, a misdemeanor may not be direct-filed unless the child has at least two prior adjudications or adjudications withheld, one of them for a felony.

Once a child transferred by information is found to have committed the offense or a lesser included offense, the consequence is lasting. The child is handled as an adult for any later violation of state law, unless the court imposes juvenile sanctions. Even in adult court, the case may be disposed of using juvenile sanctions.

Nationally, the federal case flow overview notes that states differ on transfer. Readers comparing systems can see how California juvenile defense handles it.

Disposition: What Happens After an Adjudication of Delinquency

A disposition is the court's order after it finds a child committed the offense. Florida's disposition statute gives the court two broad paths: commitment to the department, or probation with community-based sanctions.

Commitment. In plain terms, a commitment places the child with the department at a particular restrictiveness level. The department assesses the child and recommends a level, and the court commits at that level or orders a different one. If it orders a different level, it must state on the record why, by a preponderance of the evidence, it is disregarding the department's assessment and recommendation. Any party may appeal that finding. The court may also recommend specific treatment approaches to the department. At the hearing, the court may discuss with the child the offense, the harm caused, and what the child should be required to do about it.

Probation. If the court does not adjudicate and commit, it sets community-based sanctions in a probation program. The statute says these may include, but are not limited to:

• substance abuse treatment,
• a day-treatment probation program,
• restitution in money or in kind,
• a curfew,
• suspension or revocation of the child's driver license,
• community service, and
• educational programs set by the district school board.

The court then orders a plan of probation with rules, requirements, conditions and rehabilitative programs. The disposition order is written and may later be modified or set aside.

A detained child generally may not be held in detention care more than 15 days after the adjudication order, except as the statute provides. For a parent, the disposition is often when the questions about school and the future feel most real. School consequences can follow a juvenile case, and they depend on the facts and on school rules this page does not cover.

Sealing a Florida Juvenile Record: Who May Apply and What It Does

Sealing restricts access to a record. It does not erase the record, and nothing on this page suggests a Florida juvenile record disappears or is sealed automatically when a child turns 18.

The basic framework for whether a Florida juvenile record can be sealed or expunged turns on:

• the offense,
• whether the child was adjudicated,
• the child's later record, and
• rules this page does not set out.

Florida's sealing eligibility rules, application process and access exceptions are not in the statutes this page cites, so this page does not state them.

A juvenile record can also have consequences for employment, college admissions and financial aid. Those consequences depend on the facts and on rules this page does not cover. Immigration consequences are governed by immigration law, which this page does not cover.

For comparison, the San Diego page explains how California sealing works. The Sacramento page covers Sacramento County juvenile cases. Neither one states Florida law.

Submitting a Consultation Request Through Juvenile Justice Defense Group

A Florida juvenile case turns on details that move quickly:

• whether the child is detained, and under what kind of order;
• whether a petition or an information has been filed;
• whether the state attorney has raised transfer; and
• when the next hearing is set.

A consultation can cover those points: the charge, the hearing dates, the detention status and the stage the case has reached. This page and this site do not cover adult criminal defense outside transfer, immigration proceedings, school discipline without criminal charges, or civil matters.

To discuss a case like this with an attorney, request a consultation about a child's juvenile case through Juvenile Justice Defense Group.