What is the difference between juvenile and adult court?
Juvenile court is different from adult court in a few important ways. In Texas, juvenile court is for children between the ages of 10-16 who have been charged with a crime. Adult court is for those over the age of 17. In juvenile court, rather than a conviction, a child may be found “delinquent” and enter the judicial system as a juvenile offender. In juvenile court, the primary focus is on rehabilitation and keeping the child out of trouble in the future, rather than solely punishing them. Often times, the outcomes of court proceedings in juvenile court result in probation or court-mandated counseling, instead of jail time. This is because the court recognizes that a juvenile is still young and may be able to benefit from additional guidance to help them stay on the right path. In adult court, punishment is the primary focus of the court proceedings. Depending on the crime, an adult may be sentenced to jail time, fines, or other penalties. The two court systems also differ in the way they treat evidence, exculpatory evidence, and the way they determine guilt. In adult court, the defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. In juvenile court, the standard is ‘preponderance of the evidence’, which means that the court must believe that the juvenile is more likely than not to have committed the crime.
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