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In Chapter 7 I wanted to go into further discussion about Public Defenders for Juveniles but in the State of California. I wanted to point out in regards to an aaffiliated institution in the state of California, the public, under the constitutional mandate, have the right to be defended in all the

phases of criminal defense, mental health, and other domestic relations proceedings. The mostshared and popular method used by juveniles is the public defender. In the California public defender association, there are lists of websites for every county and how these minors can access public defender services (NJDC, 2016). The public defender attorneys are normally paid by the local county government if there emerges an issue which prevents representation by the public defender, and then the court normally appoints a defense council. (Cal. Penal code&218).

In 2015, the California State Legislature under the AB 703, educates on the training requirements of juvenile defense attorneys and also made it clear that it now recognizes the field of young defense. The primary duty is to ensure that they provide effective, diligent, conscientious competent advocacy for all the clients.

Different states maintain various standards, an example of such standards is found in the county of San Bernardino where attorneys who represent juveniles are prohibited from seeking certification of competency and are also not certified by the court as competent until the attorney has met all the minimum standards of competency. The court frequently defines the age of a child who is considered to be a juvenile. Also, no statute specifies the youngest age a child is supposed to be so that one can be adjudicated, delinquent. After the 18th birthday, the juvenile is the referred to as an adult and is after that charged in an adult court. If a minor is already committed to the California Youth Authority after having committed a certain crime, the court of minors is supposed to maintain the jurisdiction until the offender attains the age of 25 (NJDC, 2016).

Reference

NJDC. (2016). Retrieved January 31, 2017, from http://njdc.info/practice-policy-resources/state-profiles/california/.

You have some really good points here, and something that is often overlooked is that the juvenile system is somewhat of a specialty.  With all of the things that are different between juvenile and criminal court would there potentially be a benefit to requiring some sort of specialization to be able to represent juveniles, or perhaps at a minimum to represent juveniles as a court appointed attorney?