AB 839

Under current law, the state public defender is required to appoint counsel to

a person entitled to representation under the Children's Code or the Juvenile Justice

Code without first determining whether the person is indigent and therefore eligible

for such an appointment. Under current law, indigency can be determined in these

cases after the eligible person is appointed an attorney. This bill specifies that a

determination of indigency is not required before the state public defender may

appoint an attorney to represent a child in a proceeding under the Children's Code

or the Juvenile Justice Code.

The bill also amends the statutes that describe the procedure for collecting

attorney fees for defendants who have been determined to be indigent. It removes

the words “in part” from the description of indigency because defendants can be

found to be only indigent or not indigent, they cannot be found to be indigent “in

part.”

In addition, the bill amends the title of a statutory section that addresses when

a judge must recuse himself or herself from further juvenile justice proceedings from

“refusal” to “recusal,” which is a more accurate legal description of the process.

For further information, see the

Notes

provided by the Law Revision

Committee of the Joint Legislative Council.