The new documentary “Kids for Cash” focuses on a pair of corrupt Pennsylvania judges and their impact on the lives of juvenile offenders. A panel that investigated the scandal issued a number of recommendations to strengthen the state’s juvenile court system, nearly all of which have since been adopted.
Included among the reforms:
- Juveniles may no longer be shackled in court except in extreme cases.
- Juveniles must have legal representation at every important hearing, and essentially may no longer waive counsel.
- A youth defendant may no longer enter a plea unless completing a written form, called a colloquy, with help from an attorney.
- Sentencing judges must explain the decision “so the juvenile, the family and the victim understand what was done and why.”
- Any judge who learns he or she is the subject of a criminal investigation must inform Pennsylvania’s chief justice.
- A new judicial code of conduct will go into effect this July.
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Source: Pennsylvania Juvenile Court Judges’ Commission
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