Although many may be skeptical of parents whose children are removed from their care, statistics show that nearly 67% of Hoosier youths exit foster care and are successfully reunited with their moms and dads. Those stories of resilience inspired the Marion Superior Court Juvenile Division and the Marion County Public Defender Agency to celebrate National Reunification Month for the first time in Indiana.
The Indiana Supreme Court will hear three oral arguments via videoconference this Thursday, considering topics including sentencing, a tax sale and a delinquent’s possession of a firearm.
Chief probation officer Christine Kerl and her team from the juvenile division of the Marion Superior Court Probation Department fanned out to Dollar Tree stores across Indianapolis earlier this spring and loaded their carts with items for families to enjoy together during these trying and tiring times.
Is the parent of a juvenile defendant waived to adult court “essential” to the presentation of that juvenile’s defense? The majority of a split Indiana Court of Appeals panel concluded the answer to that question was yes, despite a dissenting judge’s opinion.
An Indiana Court of Appeals panel has reversed for two parents in a termination of parental rights case after finding that reasonable efforts were not made by the Department of Child Services to reunify them with their children.
Criticizing the Department of Child Services for attempting to take a “second bite of the proverbial apple” by filing a successive CHINS petition, the Indiana Supreme Court has reversed a CHINS adjudication and instead dismissed the petition with prejudice.
A juvenile delinquent and her mother successfully appealed an order requiring that they pay more than $11,000 for secure detention costs after an appellate panel found no inquires were ever made concerning the mother’s ability to pay.
A unanimous Indiana Supreme Court has affirmed the denial of a mother’s motion to dismiss her termination of parental rights petition after finding she wasn’t entitled to a dismissal under the circumstances.
In an unsuccessful challenge to a trial court’s authority to send him to the Indiana Department of Correction, a Hendricks County juvenile learned the juvenile justice system gives courts wider latitude because the goal is to rehabilitate the offending youth.
In the middle of the General Assembly’s 2020 session, as youth advocates were fighting proposed legislation that would have allowed preteens to be charged as adults for certain crimes, the Commission on Improving the Status of Children in Indiana took a step toward comprehensive juvenile justice reform.
Anyone younger than 18 will need a judge’s permission to get married in Indiana under a law change approved by state legislators. The measure endorsed almost unanimously by lawmakers would repeal the state’s current law that allows those as young as 15 to marry if they have parental consent.
Compassion. Persistence. Patience. These are shared qualities that Indiana’s court appointed special advocates have when working with thousands of Hoosier kids in the child welfare system each year. Indiana Lawyer spoke with a few of those advocates about their personal experiences as CASAs following a 30th anniversary celebration of the Indiana Office of GAL/CASA on March 4.
An Indianapolis teenager charged as an adult pleaded guilty Wednesday to two counts of murder in the August shooting deaths of two siblings.
Anyone younger than 18 will need a judge’s permission in order to get married in Indiana under a law change approved by state legislators.
A 16-year-old Indianapolis boy was charged Monday with murder as an adult for allegedly fatally shooting two teenage siblings.
Lee Boyd Malvo, the Washington, D.C., area sniper, and the state of Virginia agreed Monday to dismiss a pending Supreme Court case after the state changed criminal sentencing law for juveniles.
A bill increasing the penalties for juvenile offenders passed a Senate committee on the night of Jan. 28 despite more than an hour of testimony from judges, attorneys, social workers, pastors and former inmates who all voiced strong and sometimes emotional opposition.
A potential fight over whether to repeal Indiana’s obsolete ban on same-sex marriages has sidetracked a widely supported proposal to raise the state’s minimum age for getting married.
A homeschooled teen who threatened to shoot students at northern Indiana high school did not convince an Indiana Court of Appeals panel that there wasn’t enough evidence to support his delinquency adjudication.
A bill increasing the penalties for juvenile offenders passed a Senate committee Tuesday night despite more than an hour of testimony from judges, attorneys, social workers, pastors and former inmates who all voiced strong and sometimes emotional opposition.