In Texas, juvenile court handles most cases for kids who were at least 10 and under 17 when the conduct happened (Family Code § 51.02(2)). That cutoff surprises a lot of parents. A 17-year-old who’s arrested for something done at 17 is an adult in the Texas criminal system, charged and booked like anyone else. If the conduct happened before the 17th birthday, the case still belongs in juvenile court. Class C tickets and traffic tickets are the big exception on the other end. A school vaping ticket or a Class C assault charge goes to a justice of the peace or municipal court, the same courts adults use for tickets (§ 51.08; Penal Code § 8.07). For a child under 17, the case goes to one of the Harris County juvenile district courts, where the goal is supposed to be rehabilitation. But juvenile court can still lock a child up, and for felonies prosecutors can ask to send the case to adult court or seek a sentence that runs for decades. Juvenile records also don’t disappear on their own in every case.
Call (713) 664-4000. If your child is being questioned or is in detention, call now. Don’t let your child talk to police or school officials about what happened before we do.
What happens after a juvenile arrest
A child taken into custody has to be released to a parent or taken without unnecessary delay to juvenile intake or a detention center. Police can hold a child in a juvenile processing office for up to six hours, and that’s where they try to get a statement (§§ 52.02, 52.025). If the child isn’t released, a judge has to hold a detention hearing no later than the second working day after the arrest, or the first working day if the arrest was on a Friday or Saturday (Family Code § 54.01). The court appoints a lawyer for that first hearing if the family hasn’t hired one, but that lawyer may be meeting your child for the first time in the hallway. The detention hearing decides whether your child comes home, and we come to it with school records and a real plan for supervision at home. If the judge keeps your child, the detention order lasts no more than 10 working days, and the question comes back up at another hearing.
Juvenile law also protects what a child says in custody. A written or recorded statement taken while a child is under arrest or in detention generally can’t be used unless a magistrate, not a police officer, first warned the child of the right to remain silent and the right to a lawyer. A written statement also has to be signed in front of the magistrate with no police in the room (§ 51.095). That protection has limits. What a child says when he isn’t in custody, to a principal or to an officer at the house, can usually be used. Those rules get broken, and when they are, we move to keep the statement out.
How juvenile cases end
| Outcome | What it means |
|---|---|
| Dismissal or no petition filed | The case ends. Records can be sealed |
| Deferred prosecution | Usually up to six months of supervision without a court finding, and a judge can extend it to as long as a year. If the child completes it, the case is closed without an adjudication (§ 53.03) |
| Adjudication with probation | A finding that the child engaged in delinquent conduct, with supervision at home or, in some cases, in a placement outside the home. Regular probation can run until the child turns 18 (§ 54.04(l)). Probation on a determinate sentence can last up to 10 years |
| Commitment to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department | Only for felony conduct, and it takes the child out of the home. Without a determinate sentence, the judge also has to find the child’s needs can’t be met in the community (§§ 54.04(d)(2), 54.04013) |
| Determinate sentence | For serious offenses like murder, aggravated robbery, aggravated assault or sexual assault, prosecutors can take the petition to a grand jury. If it’s approved, the judge or jury can impose a sentence of up to 40 years for the most serious offenses (20 for a second-degree felony like aggravated assault) that starts in juvenile custody and can be finished in adult prison (§§ 53.045, 54.04(d)(3)) |
| Certification as an adult | A juvenile judge can transfer a felony case to adult court if the child was 14 or older for the most serious felonies, or 15 or older for other felonies (§ 54.02) |
A certification hearing is the most important hearing in a juvenile case. The judge looks at the seriousness of the offense and the child’s background, and the defense can present evaluations, school records, counseling history and family support that show the case belongs in juvenile court. Once a child is certified, the adult court can’t send the case back (§ 54.02(i)). And any later felony charge has to be transferred to adult court too, unless the first case ended with no indictment, an acquittal, a dismissal with prejudice or a reversal on appeal (§ 54.02(m)). Prosecutors can even ask for certification after the person turns 18, for a felony committed as a juvenile, if the state couldn’t bring it sooner.
Sealing a juvenile record
Many juvenile records are sealed automatically. If a person was never adjudicated for a felony, isn’t facing new charges and has no adult conviction for a felony or a jailable misdemeanor, the records are sealed without an application at age 19 (§ 58.253). Felony adjudications don’t qualify for automatic sealing, but most can still be sealed if we apply to the court. The main exceptions are a determinate sentence, a person who’s still required to register as a sex offender, someone who hasn’t been discharged from a TJJD commitment and anyone with an adult felony conviction. A case that was certified to adult court can’t be sealed under the juvenile sealing law at all (§§ 58.253, 58.256). The outcome we negotiate decides which of those paths your child ends up on, so we look at the sealing consequences of every offer before we recommend one.
How we defend juvenile cases
We defend a juvenile case the way we’d defend an adult one. That means challenging the stop, the search, the statement and the identification. But we also build what juvenile court judges and prosecutors care about: school performance, counseling, community ties and a parent who’s going to be supervising. That work is often what gets a case diverted, dismissed, reduced or kept out of adult court. Cases that start at school, like fights, threats, vapes and drugs, also come with school discipline at the same time, and what a child says in a school hearing can end up in the court case.
Is your child charged with a crime in Houston? Call Blass Law
Jay Blass Cohen has defended criminal cases in Houston since 2009 and has never worked for the prosecution. We move quickly in juvenile cases, because the detention hearing comes within days and the decisions made early shape everything after.
Call (713) 664-4000. If your child was arrested today, call now.
Reviewed by Jay Blass Cohen, founder of Blass Law PLLC, ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientist, certified Drug Recognition Expert, and SFST instructor, serving Houston since 2009. This article is general information, not legal advice for your situation. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.