I ran into a friend this weekend and he told me about some legal troubles his family is going through. Without going into a lot of details, one of this guy’s kids was accused of something, and is in trouble with the law, has been tossed into juvy until the trial, and it sounds like a weird call on the part of one judge. The kid has a couple of serious disabilities. The accusation sounds fishy, with some odd holes in the accusation. Now of course I’m getting this information from the kid’s dad, who is biased, but if he is even half right about what’s happened, then this situation is messed up.
The issue is this family is not well off financially. They don’t have much money. They consulted with an attorney specializing in juvenile criminal issues, but that’s $250 an hour. So they are stuck with a public defender that doesn’t seem interested in talking to anybody.
So if there is a Utah attorney here that can do juvenile criminal justice, and would be willing to consult with this person, and possibly do some discounted or pro-bono work, please leave me your contact information and I will forward it on.
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I have a suggestion… Perhaps if you can help this family give both the referree and the lawyer characters in the book!
Hell, yes. I’d tutor Larry’s kids in exchange for a cameo in a Correia book series.
(But I’d give them a crash course on the classics.) :p
My mother in law is in Bountiful and is very good. Send me some info and I’ll see what can be done. I’m at turnmeister@gmail.com Please let me know the charges and situation and we’ll try and help.
From my experience with public defenders, they are usually some of the best criminal defense attorneys around – they just have too much on their plate at one time to give all the attention they should to certain cases.
If they can’t find an affordable alternative to the public defender, here are my suggestions:
1) call the PD every day wanting to talk to him/her – cooperation from clients is pretty rare for PDs so when it happens they usually put in extra time/effort. If they don’t get a hold of the person handling their case, demand to talk to a supervisor;
2) alert the media. If this case really does have as many holes as the dad thinks, then the last thing the PDs and the Court will want is news outlets asking why the judge stuck a kid with disabilities in custody until day of trial. Things will get resolved quickly.
Is this strictly a police beef, or is some private person making accusations?
Maybe a slander suit may be in order?
What about setting up a fund for us to contribute towards legal expenses?
Whoa! Before we all go haring off on a fundraiser, we don’t know the facts of this case. Just because the father says the kid has some disabilities A) does not make them recognized medical issues that would render the juvenile incapable of being held responsible for their actions, and B) do the disabilities even have any bearing on the charges, ie: having ADD does not excuse you from theft or assault.
I’m pretty sure Larry is just trying to help out, is there any way of finding out more details before the MH Nation springs into action?
I’m not taking any other action than sticking this out there in case there are any attorneys interested.