NCJ Number
138607
Date Published
1991
Length
16 pages
Annotation
This paper questions the value of vigorously using "not guilty" pleas in Children's Court in Australia (and by implication in North America) and compares this pattern with procedures in Canada's juvenile courts.
Abstract
Traditional legal practice combined with the way solicitors are paid for their services encourages "strenuous defenses" in Children's Courts in Australia (and probably in juvenile courts in North America). Such efforts can do more damage than good. Salaried solicitors, or public defenders, who admittedly are part of the system, may provide better service to juveniles by spending less time on the issue of guilt and more time on the issue of appropriate disposition. Unfortunately, in much of anglophone Canada (and possibly Australia and the United States), the legal profession is one of the major barriers to such a development. The continued denigration of public solicitors and of work in the youth courts serves to protect the expensive and inefficient procedures currently being used. Quebec has developed both professional public defenders and prosecutors who specialize in juvenile court and seem to improve the system. In the rest of Canada, as in Australia, law associations resist the creation of public defenders. More money is funneled from the public purse into the pockets of lawyers for adjournments and delays. 13 references