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The Office of the Juvenile Defender presented three regional trainings, called “Youth Defender Forums,” at the end of 2025 and early 2026. The Youth Defender Forum is geared towards attorneys of all experience levels and attempts to reach defenders close to home to provide an opportunity for learning and building community. Locations included Wilkesboro and Greenville, with the Greensboro training converted to a virtual training due to weather. Each training provided the same topics around “Effe

The impact of sexual offenses in juvenile court often create confusion with the youth, the parents/caretakers, alleged victims, and stakeholders including law enforcement, court counselors, assistant district attorneys and defense counsel. Youth and parents are often informed by law enforcement, social workers, and others that juvenile court records are “sealed”, and an admission and subsequent adjudication will help obtain appropriate services for the youth without any long-term negative conse

January 1, 2025, marked the implementation of the new juvenile capacity (and remediation) laws. Yet, here we are, over a year later, scratching our heads on how we’re actually supposed to get our clients evaluated. I wanted to share some thoughts to navigate this clear-as-mud terrain.First – if you aren’t familiar with what the changes are, please take a moment to catch up on this. Check out these UNC School of Government blog posts for a thorough explanation:New Law on Juvenile Capacity to Proc

My name is Euraja Anderson, Euraja is pronounced Eurasia (like Europe and Asia). I am a current 2L at North Carolina Central University School of Law with a strong interest in several areas of law, to include Criminal Defense and Juvenile Justice.My yearning to work in juvenile justice begins with our education system, where a lot of our youth are usually enabled, based on the level of support that they receive or the lack thereof. Behavioral policies in North Carolina’s education system (specif

As 2025 closes, the Office of the Juvenile Defender would first like to thank all of the attorneys working to protect the rights of youth charged with crimes. OJD endeavors to provide resources and support juvenile defenders all year, and we hope our efforts result in staunch advocacy for our clients!Goings and comings:Assistant Juvenile Defender Burcu Hensley left OJD at the beginning of this year to join the Wake County Public Defender Office. We appreciate all of Burcu’s hard work and value-a

Many of the provisions in House Bill 307 have been in effect since December 1, 2025. And while this bill is largely related to pre-trial conditions in the adult criminal justice system, it also makes some changes to juvenile justice. The bill has provisions that permit extending the terms of probation and post release supervision for certain youth and requires notification to victims prior to termination of probation and post release in certain cases.Extension of ProbationThe bill edits 7B-251

Every year the Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention publishes an annual report, documenting the challenges and achievements of the past year, and containing a wealth of interesting and useful data. As I did last year, in this blog I’ll highlight ten pieces of information from the 2024 publication. All youth referred to are youth alleged to be delinquent; undisciplined youth are not included in these numbers. The graphics are from the actual report:1. Map of facilities and serv

As many of you already know, our office covers the entire state. In an effort to become more familiar with the many different counties, our office has split the state into three regions:As you can see from the map, the three regions are as follows: • Yolanda Fair, Assistant Juvenile Defender for the Western Region, has her home base in Buncombe County, and covers the Tennessee border east to Yadkin and Rowan counties • Terri Johnson, Assistant Juvenile Defender for the Central Region, has her h

Hello everyone, my name is Daniela Hernandez-Gil (or Dani, for short), and I am excited to join the Office of the Juvenile Defender this fall. I am currently a second-year law student at Duke University School of Law, where I nurture my passion for youth defense, cultural competency, and decarceration. I came into law school knowing that I wanted to be a juvenile defender. I previously worked for the Office of the Public Defender of the 8th Judicial Circuit in Florida and Wake County’s Public De

It’s time for me to share some bittersweet news. I’ll be stepping away from my role as a Communications Specialist with the Office of the Juvenile Defender. Working here has been such a rewarding experience, and I’ve been so lucky to learn from and work with people who care deeply about our youth and their rights.Many things have happened and one of them is… life has brought me a new chapter, motherhood, and for now, my heart (and most of my time!) will be focused there. While I’m moving on fr