Do juveniles adequately receive due process protections in juvenile delinquency hearings?
ANSWER Studies have indicated that many juveniles do not receive the due process protections to which they are entitled. More importantly, they frequently do not receive effective assistance of legal counsel. For example, in many instances, juveniles are urged to waive their right to counsel. In other cases where juveniles receive counsel, that counsel is often deprived of the resources to provide effective legal representation – lawyers who represent juveniles often labor under enormous caseloads with little training or support staff. One recent nationwide study found that public defenders who represent juveniles have, on average, more that 500 cases per year, with more than 300 of those cases being juvenile cases. Public defenders often lack specialized training in representing juveniles: approximately one-half of public defender offices do not even have a section devoted to juvenile delinquency practice in the office training manual while about one-third do not include juvenile deli
