People who have been involved with the criminal justice system, whether as defendants or as lawyers, are used to the fact that more than 90 percent of defendants in criminal cases plead guilty, but this figure is shocking when you first hear it, and it should be shocking. The Constitution and its Amendments guarantee due process of law to people accused of crimes; the goal is to ensure that no one is unfairly convicted of a crime and that no one who gets fairly convicted of a crime receives an unfair punishment. You should be shocked that there are people in Texas who must remain on the sex offender registry for life because of a sex offense conviction they received in adult criminal court when they were 17 or younger.
If your teenage son or daughter gets accused of a sex-related offense, it is imperative to help your child exercise his or her legal rights, and the best way to do this is with the help of a Texas sex crime attorney.
There Is a Sex Offender Registry for Juveniles, but It Is Not as Punitive as the Adult One
The purpose of the juvenile justice system is to spare teens a lifetime of involvement with the criminal justice system and the stigma that such involvement carries. Therefore, there are key differences in juvenile court; when teens are adjudicated delinquent, this adjudication does not stay on their record permanently. Likewise, the periods of detention are shorter; no one goes to juvenile detention as a teen and stays there until his or her mid-twenties. Likewise, judges have a lot more flexibility to consider a wide variety of factors to decide how best to respond to teens’ risky behavior.
When juveniles are adjudicated delinquent for sex-related offenses, their names get added to the juvenile sex offender registry. Unlike the adult sex offender registry, the juvenile registry is not public; the point is not to attach stigma to teens who go through the juvenile court system. The only people who can find youthful offenders’ names on the juvenile sex offender registry are law enforcement, school employees, and healthcare professionals. The maximum length of time that a teen’s name can remain on the juvenile sex offender registry is ten years after the teen graduates from the juvenile court system.
Deferred Adjudication for Young Defendants
The courts may try teens as adults if they are at least 14 years old and have a history of delinquency in the juvenile court system. If this happens to your child, your child’s lawyer should petition the court for deferred adjudication. Deferred adjudication is a form of pretrial intervention where the defendant enters a provisional plea of no contest and serves a probation sentence. If the defendant successfully completes the sentence, the court drops the charges, and the defendant does not get a criminal conviction on his or her record, and does not have to register on the sex offender registry.
Contact the Law Office of Patrick J. McLain, PLLC, About Criminal Defense Cases
A Dallas criminal defense lawyer can help you fight charges involving alleged sexual offenses by teenagers. Contact the Law Office of Patrick J. McLain, PLLC in Dallas, Texas to discuss your case.