This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a nonprofit news organization covering the U.S. criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook.
Children accused of crimes have the right to an attorney, just like adults. A new report raises questions about whether all children are getting the best possible representation.
Wren Collective, a criminal justice reform group, compiled the report while examining court systems across the country in the lead up to the 60th anniversary of Gideon V. Wainwright. The landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision guarantees legal representation for people facing criminal charges.
In Cuyahoga County, the group said it found:
- Juvenile court judges weren’t following state rules when assigning cases to private attorneys, and that not all lawyers selected to represent children were qualified to handle the cases.
- The court was underutilizing the public defender’s office. In other large Ohio counties, public defenders automatically represent juveniles, unless there’s a conflict of interest. In Cuyahoga County, they are assigned to about one third of delinquency cases.
- Public defenders had more successful outcomes than retained or court-appointed attorneys when seeking to prevent childrens’ cases from a transfer to adult court, a process called a bindover.
The Marshall Project – Cleveland also examined state data related to private attorney appointments by juvenile judges in 2002 and found five attorneys handled nearly half of the cases. That same year, some attorneys were reimbursed for handling as many as 135 delinquency cases.
During a Dec. 12 public meeting, court officials defended their process and said the court in 2023 had increased assignments to the Public Defender’s office. Juvenile Court Judge Jennifer O’Malley said she had not seen a difference in outcomes among cases that were represented by a public defender or an attorney appointed by the court.
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