The Washington state Court of Appeals has ruled that a juvenile accused of chronic truancy must be given a lawyer at the first court hearing. Under the state law, a student with seven or more unexcused absences in a month or 10 or more in a school year may be ordered to appear in Juvenile Court. The child in the truancy proceedings had been under a court order for school attendance and was repreatedly found in contempt for violating the order and threatened with electronic monitoring.
The decision was made by a unanimous three-judge panel of the Washington state Court of Appeals, reversing a King County Superior Court ruling and an earlier Court of Appeals finding that was made on different issues. The panel found that denying a juvenile the right to a lawyer from the outset was in violation of constitutional requirements of due process. The right to a lawyer has been well-established in criminal cases, but the right to a lawyer in civil proceedings has not yet been clearly defined.
Source: http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/entry/Wash-court-rules-that-truants-entitled-to-lawyer
Tags: right to representation, truancy
