MIDC Receives Grant Funding for Youth Defense Trial Skills Training
The Michigan Indigent Defense Commission was awarded a 3 year youth defense trial skills training grant by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Free trial skills training will be available to all qualifying youth defense attorneys in Michigan. Read the full proposal submitted to OJJDP here.
Read about our Project Manager, Susan Prentice-Sao
To learn more about the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention click here.
Youth have a right to an attorney
Both US and Michigan law recognize effective assistance of counsel as a critical part of a youth’s due process rights. As determined by the Supreme Court in In re Gault,
“[t]here is no material difference . . . between adult and juvenile proceedings. The juvenile needs the assistance of counsel to cope with problems of law, to make skilled inquiry into the facts, to insist upon regularity of the proceedings, and to ascertain whether he has a defense and to prepare and submit it. The child ‘requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him.”
In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 36 (1967) (citing Powell v. Alabama, 287 U. S. 45, 69 (1932)). See also Mich. Comp. Laws § 712A.2(a)(requiring appointment of an attorney for a juvenile proceeding)
Why is this OJJDP Grant important?
Research Shows Michigan is Failing at its Obligation to Provide Quality Youth Defense, including Lacking Attorney Training and Oversight. Read the full report by the Michigan Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform (2022). This outcome confirms a 2020 independent statewide assessment conducted by the Gault Center (formerly the National Juvenile Defender Center) that found Michigan’s young people are facing prosecution without protection of their constitutional rights. Read Overdue for Justice: An Assessment of Access to and Quality of Juvenile Defense Counsel in Michigan (2020).
How do I register for these free youth defense trial skills trainings?
More information will be available at the end of August 2024.
I’m interested in being a trainer, who do I contact?
Susan Prentice-Sao, Program Manager – Youth Defense Training
Our Advisory Board Members:
- Bernadette Brown
- Ebony Howard
- Thom Lattig
- Kenneth Nixon
- Dorphine Payne
- Jennifer Peacock
- Joshua Pease
- Judge Amanda G. Pollard
- Gavriella Roisman
- Delphia Simpson
- Kristen Staley
- Kimberly Thomas