Achieving Excellence in Detention Advocacy: Guidelines for Juvenile Defenders to Provide Zealous Advocacy at Initial Detention Hearings

These guidelines are designed to assist defenders in assessing their advocacy at the traditional, threepart initial hearings held in most jurisdictions: arraignment, the probable cause determination, and the detention hearing. In some jurisdictions, these are all collapsed into a single hearing. Because many jurisdictions still allow children to waive their right to counsel and/or plead at the initial hearing, some questions allude to these practices.