The Children’s Corner
| Publication year | 2013 |
| Pages | 39 |
Spring 2013
JUVENILE PSYCHOLOGICAL, PSYCHOSEXUAL, AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE ASSESSMENTS
Marshall Pahl, Esq.
As a frequent visitor to Woodside and a juvenile representative at DCF’s administrative detention hearings, [1] I’ve seen the following scenario play out many times. A juvenile with a record of petty delinquencies is picked up for a relatively minor offense. Suspecting that there might be a deeper problem underlying her repeat offenses, the trial court judge orders her to undergo a substance abuse assessment, the results of which will be disclosed to DCF. The girl honestly discloses to the substance abuse evaluator that she has been involved with some fairly typical teenage drug use—drinking beer and smoking marijuana. Prior to the assessment, the young woman did not quite meet DCF’s criteria for secure detention—DCF could not lock her up at Woodside for more than a few days. With the court-ordered substance abuse assessment in evidence, however, she may remain at Woodside for weeks or months.
Vermont’s juvenile justice system is, at its core, a strictly rehabilitative response to delinquency.[2] That laudatory purpose, however, has occasionally engendered a less-than-exacting approach to the rules and laws intended to protect juveniles’ constitutional and statutory rights to privacy, confidentiality, and freedom from compelled self-incrimination. Particular problems have developed around psychological, psychosexual, and substance abuse evaluations.
The power of courts to order evaluations and assessments is limited and the use of compelled evaluations is strictly controlled. Nevertheless, the evaluations seem to regularly slip into court proceedings and administrative detention hearings for all the wrong reasons. Juveniles who were encouraged to candidly and honestly admit the scope of their drug or alcohol use for treatment purposes find that information used to support orders for secure detention and those who participate in court-ordered psychological evaluations find inculpatory statements made during those evaluations admitted as evidence in substantive hearings. In some cases, youth who have been dually-charged with a serious felony in the criminal division and a misdemeanor in the family division have been ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation by the juvenile division only to have the resulting report offered as evidence in a criminal hearing. It is critical for all parties in the juvenile justice system—juvenile attorneys, prosecutors, GALs, judges, and DCF case-workers—to understand what evaluations and assessments may be ordered, and how they may then be used.
Pre-Adjudication Court-Ordered Evaluations
The juvenile court exercises only “very limited statutory powers.”[3] Unless an order is specifically authorized by statute, the court lacks the authority to issue it.[4] Prior to an adjudication, a court may only order examinations as permitted by V.R.F.P. 1(h) (1) or 1(i)(2). Subsection (h)(1) allows court-ordered examinations in juvenile proceedings only where the defense has provided notice that sanity is at issue or that the defense plans to offer expert testimony regarding a mental disease or defect bearing on the issue of guilt.[5] Subsection (i)(2) allows court-ordered examinations for the limited purpose of determining competence.[6]
Despite the lack of statutory authority, courts regularly order pre-adjudication evaluations not permitted by the rules, often over the objection of defense...
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