JUVENILE JUSTICE - The Bar Association of San Francisco

Judge Donna Hitchens
JUVENILE JUSTICE
Transcending Troubles
and Breaking the Cycle
Leslie A. Gordon
16 SUMMER 2009

One of the principle tenets of juvenile court is
that all proceedings are confidential. As a result,
juvenile courts, which are a part of San
Francisco’s Unified Family Court, are mysterious
places to most people. But the attorneys who practice
there—along with the judges—are part of a distinct
universe, where lawyers on opposing sides have close relationships
and, uniquely, the same goal: to help troubled
youth navigate the system and to get them the help they
need so they can get on with their lives.
Because cases involving youth are often complicated by
psychological, educational, and behavioral issues, problems
cannot necessarily be solved by a legal resolution
alone. As a result, attorneys in this area also have to be
quasi social workers.
Meanwhile, under the mandates of the California Welfare
and Institutions Code, judges face the very tricky task
of formulating the “least restrictive” plan for delinquent
juveniles while still protecting the community. Resolving
tension between rehabilitation and punishment is especially
challenging when many kids in the system have
absent parents and, increasingly, mental health problems
including posttraumatic stress disorder from witnessing
profound violence, with many of the problems cycling
through generations of families.
Yet San Francisco has built a reputation for cutting-edge
approaches with collaborative justice programming.
Commonly referred to as “problem-solving” courts, the
collaborative courts combine judicial supervision with rehabilitation
services. It requires an unusual, coordinated
effort among attorneys, law enforcement, and public service
agencies.
The Youth Family Violence Court, for instance, was
founded specifically to rehabilitate youth who have committed
violence toward a family member or in the context
of a dating relationship. Services include court supervision
and appearances, violence intervention programs, mental
health services, and child trauma services.
Similarly, the Youth Treatment and Education Center
runs three programs for youth in the juvenile justice system.
The core program is the Principal Center Collaborative,
a high school for youth on probation that integrates
behavioral health services
within the school day.
San Francisco’s unique Unified
Family Court and collaborative
courts create
multiple stakeholders in
the success of youth in the
system, including judges,
district attorneys, public
defenders, panel attorneys,
court administrators, community organizations, and
pro bono lawyers. In contrast to typical adversarial
relationships, these stakeholders problem-solve collaboratively,
making youth law both one of the most troubling
and and also one of the most rewarding areas to
practice law.
The Judge
Perhaps no person is more responsible for improvements
in the administration of youth law in San Francisco
than Donna Hitchens, supervising judge of the
Unified Family Court.
After founding the National Center for Lesbian Rights,
Hitchens won election in 1990 to an open seat on the
bench. She soon witnessed many overlapping issues slip
through the administrative cracks and set forth to unify
the family courts.
As a result, family court judges now take a holistic approach
to families, with delinquency, dependency, family
law, and child support cases all coordinated. Today,
if a foster youth (dependency court) gets arrested (delinquency
court), the two judges are now aware of both
cases. For the moment, the courts are not colocated:
delinquency (criminal matters) is at the San Francisco
Youth Guidance Center (YGC), also known as juvenile
hall, in Twin Peaks; dependency, family law, and child
support are at the Civic Center Courthouse.
“The goal is ‘one family, one judge.’ We’re not there exactly,
but we’re close. We’ve made a 90 percent improvement,”
Hitchens says during an interview in her chambers,
which is decorated with bears and other stuffed
animals and a framed “I love you mom” card.
Youth Guidance Center photos by Jim Block except as noted.
THE BAR ASSOCIATION OF SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO ATTORNEY 17

Today, the growing number
of youth in the system with
serious mental health issues and
the dwindling resources to help
them is “an incredible problem,”
she says. “In my opinion,
it’s the result of violence
in the home and in the community.
Many of the kids
have undiagnosed posttraumatic
stress disorder.”
Fortunately, Hitchens adds, San Francisco has “an incredibly
dedicated group of attorneys” working together to
help them. “The PDs, the DAs, the panel attorneys: it’s a
community.” They may technically be on opposing sides
of a case, but, “ultimately, they do want the same thing.”
Anyone practicing law in this area must be “incredibly patient,”
Hitchens adds. “You have to have a little bit of a
social worker in you—you step out of a straight lawyer
or straight judge role. The task is more complex, much
broader than looking up sentencing guidelines.”
In particular, judges in this area must be willing to take
risks. “The hardest cases to decide are those involving
younger juveniles who’ve committed an act of violence or
who’ve been caught with a gun, even if they never used
it. You can’t lock every kid up. You put the best orders
in place. And remember, no one counts the kids who are
released and do just fine. The vast majority of kids don’t recidivate.”
Indeed, most kids at the Youth Guidance Center
are not repeat offenders: in 2008, the recidivism rate was
only 3 percent.
result, decisions “are harder than they used to be. On a
case-by-case basis, we construct orders that can rehabilitate
a child and improve the child’s opportunities for success.
But no one has the crystal ball; there’s no cookie cutter.
Kids come from very different circumstances.”
Not surprisingly, for lawyers and judges focused on troubled
youth, coping mechanisms are essential. “It helps to
have a good family life,” says Hitchens, whose partner is
Nancy Davis, a civil division judge. They have two daughters.
“Our kids have left the nest, but they were four and
six when I became a judge. I could come home from work
and be so grateful that my kids were healthy and they had
hopes and dreams.” Hitchens also spends time gardening
and fishing.
For Bay Area attorneys who may be learning about San
Francisco youth law for the first time, Hitchens says the
most important service adults can provide these kids is
that of a mentor. “An adult mentor helps them focus, gives
them positive ways to use their energy, provides job readiness,
and helps them achieve academically. Any successful
person in the world will tell you they had parent mentors
or a coach or an eleventh-grade math teacher who cared
about them one on one.”
The Assistant District Attorney
By way of example, Hitchens recalls when a young man
wearing a suit came into her court unannounced a few
years ago and asked to speak with her. “It turns out he
came in to thank me. I had given him a second chance
[when he was younger], and he was on his way to college.”
Yet other cases still haunt her, like the teenage mother who
had committed violence. Hitchens chose to place the girl
and her child in a safe, appropriate place. The Court of
Appeal overruled Hitchens and the girl was sent to adult
court. “She hooked up with tough folks,” Hitchens recalls.
“She was rearrested and ended up abandoning her child.”
Today, more kids with weapons and more kids committing
robberies are winding up in Hitchens’s court. As a
18 FALL 2009
Rani Singh

When District Attorney Kamala Harris was looking for
someone to handle juvenile gun cases after receiving a
grant in 2005, Rani Singh threw up her hand.
“I have always been interested in juvenile work,” explains
Singh, who had been handling felony domestic violence
and stalking cases in adult court. “I was a sociology major
with an emphasis in juvenile justice and had even considered
getting a master’s in social work.”
Today, Singh is one of six assistant district attorneys who
work with juveniles. She is the assigned DA for the collaborative
courts, and her specialties include gun and serious
sex crimes cases.
The Public Defender
Representing youth in delinquency
court requires public
defenders to get involved in a
host of “collateral” issues, says
Patricia Lee, of the San Francisco
Office of the Public Defender,
which represents 1,400
youth a year, some as young as
eleven. Lee, the managing attorney,
oversees a staff of seventeen
in the juvenile unit, including seven attorneys.
Unlike adult court, the juvenile court operates on a rehabilitation
model rather than a punishment model, says
Singh, who handles about one hundred files at a time.
Plus, she adds, “it’s much more collaborative than adult
court. I’m getting involved with parents even though I’m
a DA.” Singh says kids in delinquency court have even
called her personally before a hearing to admit, “I’m not
clean.” In adult court, in contrast, Singh “never personalized
the defendants. I never looked at them.”
A mother of two young children and a native San Franciscan,
Singh believes that DAs who want to work in juvenile
court need to have a sixth sense. “Some kids, you know
you’ll see later in adult court,” she explains, noting factors
like the severity of the crime, the age they enter the system,
the family structure, and collateral problems like school,
gang, or drug issues. “Other times, you see the kid and you
know they’ll never come back.”
Singh is married to a deputy sheriff, and their two sometimes
“icky jobs” make them realize how lucky they are—
and how important parents are. Singh recalls a mother
who reeked of marijuana in a courtroom, yet yelled at
her. “‘Why are you locking up my baby’ Doing this work
makes me sad and grateful. It makes me angry at parents,”
Singh says.
Yet while some DAs hate doing juvenile work, Singh
doesn’t. “If I see one success story in ten, that’s great because
in adult court, I saw no success.”
Patricia Lee
Collateral issues include educational proceedings like
expulsion and individualized education plans. “We know
the importance of keeping kids in school. Many kids
are not bad kids but simply failures of the school system.
Many are special education or have mental or behavior
health issues,” Lee explains. “We’ve approached
the problems holistically. Success can be measured by
THE BAR ASSOCIATION OF SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO ATTORNEY 19

ecidivism, but also by the
right school placement.”
Many of the public defender’s
clients are at the Youth Guidance
Center, a short-term
youth detention facility that
provides residential services
for 132 youth. Those kids are
in custody awaiting investigative
action immediately after
admission, in custody per court order pending further
court hearings, or in custody awaiting placement. Kids
at the YGC receive educational, medical, and mental
health services as well as socialization skills training and
general counseling.
Because some youth wind up on probation for several
years, Lee and her staff get to know them and their complicated
issues. “We don’t just defend. We help them get
guardianship, relocate, find tutoring services.”
She’s also observed an increase in territorial or “turf” issues.
“When the city had it’s backpack giveaway, one giveaway
location had to be up a hill and then we had to provide a
separate giveaway down the hill” because the kids wouldn’t
travel even short distances through areas inhabited by
rival gangs.
Despite the institutional obstacles and emotional challenges
of defending delinquent youth, Lee firmly believes
every child should be afforded an opportunity. “Most
youth who come through here don’t know what opportunity
means. If we save one child in a year, that’s the reward
for working in the juvenile justice system. We give them
tools and opportunities to move out of the system. Ten
percent are hard core and will move into the adult system.
But first-time offenders A lot of these kids will succeed.
We’ve had kids go on to college. To be part of that process,
that’s the reward.”
The Court Administrator
According to Lee, few public defenders provide the level of
representation to youth that San Francisco’s does. “Many
kids in other jurisdictions joke about ‘public pretenders’
or ‘public offenders.’ But we don’t hear that,” she says.
“We’ve developed a level of credibility within the system
and community.”
The mother of four daughters, Lee joined the public defender’s
office in 1985. She began her career focusing on
gender differences and found that more resources were allocated
to boys in the system. Now more services are devoted
to girls, which is fortunate because the majority of
girls—as many as 90 percent—have suffered sexual abuse,
abandonment, neglect, mental health, or behavioral issues,
Lee says.
Other changes that Lee has witnessed include fewer crack
cases, but a surge in violent crimes—robberies, weapons
possessions, shootings—by “teenage boys from the poorest
of poor communities,” Lee says. “They’re raised by family
members because their fathers are in jail, are in prison, are
deceased, or have been killed. These boys don’t expect to
live past age twenty. We have a high level of young people
with serious mental health issues and cognitive deficiencies,
especially those from drug-addicted mothers.”
Claire Williams
20 FALL 2009

The main premise of San Francisco’s Unified Family Court
is to deal with families, not individual cases, explains Claire
Williams, the court’s administrative director.
Before unification, a situation might occur in which parental
rights would be terminated in a dependency case;
but if the child later faced criminal charges, the delinquency
court judge, unaware of the dependency case, might
release the child back to that parent. Today, however, cross
cases are flagged. At the very least, each judge dealing with
the family now knows about what the other judge is doing.
“We’re headed to one judge, one family: no matter what
door the child came through, the judge would keep the
case,” Williams says. “We’re still working on that. It’s baby
steps.” In the meantime, the judges talk to each other and
to relevant agencies on an as-needed basis. Standing orders
are in place allowing attorneys to communicate.
The Public Interest
Lawyer
Public interest attorneys representing
youth often have to
shift their legal practices to
respond to community needs.
Case in point: a year-old city
policy established by the mayor’s
office requires that any
undocumented minor who is
booked—not charged—with a
felony must be reported to immigration. Since last July,
130 youth have been reported, resulting in an “onslaught”
of cases for Legal Services for Children (LSC), a nonprofit
agency providing legal services to disadvantaged youth,
says director Abigail Trillin.
Another goal is to create consistency and efficiencies across
court orders. “We don’t want the family to have to do one
thing in one system and another thing in another system.”
A former family law lawyer, Williams found herself
“burned out” with family law practice, largely because
she wasn’t good at setting boundaries. “Families will
continue to have problems after representation,” she explains.
“You’re not a knight in shining armor—and you
have to know you’re not or else you’ll take on too
much responsibility.”
Today, most of Williams’s work at the court deals with
programs—specifically, finding grants and then overseeing
the administration. She also serves as a liaison to the bench
for dealing with outside agencies. “My job is extremely
collaborative,” says Williams, who has five managers reporting
to her and has no fewer than twenty-five regularly
scheduled meetings. “We’re fortunate in San Francisco.
We have a fabulous group of attorneys, an extremely committed
bar.”
Lawyers who work on youth cases need to be flexible, she
adds. “It’s quasi social work. Lawyers must be empathetic
and understand the bigger picture: how best to create a
resolution that the child and the family can live with.”
Attorneys in this area who are “strict and formal” are too
short sighted, she says. “They may win the battle today,
but you need to look down the road. You can’t look at the
child in a vacuum.”
Abigail Trillin
THE BAR ASSOCIATION OF SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO ATTORNEY 21
Photo by Lorraine Lee Nelsen

This immigration rule is so
broad, according to Trillin, that
it includes youth who’ve lived in
the United States “forever” with
their parents. “They’re facing
deportation to countries they
don’t consider their home,” she
says. In many cases, “they don’t
even speak the language.”
As a result, LSC has shifted its
focus to assist immigrant youth
in federal detention. If they’ve committed a minor offense,
they’re sent to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an arm
of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The level of placement—a shelter, a staff-secure facility or
juvenile hall—depends on the child’s age and the charges.
Children charged with major offenses are put directly in
the custody of U.S. Immigration Services.
LSC helps families reunite while cases are pending and
also lobbies for lower placement, explains Trillin, who has
worked at LSC for thirteen years.
“This is devastating the lives of many families,” she says.
“It also undermines the neutrality and confidentiality of
the system.”
Now unauthorized individuals are looking at otherwise
confidential juvenile files, and youth are being charged
with felonies for otherwise minor violations like graffiti,
Trillin says. “This policy undermines the work of the court
to rehabilitate and, frankly, undermines public safety in
our city. Now immigrant youth are more isolated and
more likely to commit crimes. A graffiti charge is a very
solvable case: they used to be able go into the public art
program and do murals.”
Especially troubling for Trillin is that the mounting immigration
cases take her staff away from other pro bono
work they could be doing.
Founded in 1975 as one of country’s first nonprofit law
firms devoted to youth, LSC provides multidisciplinary,
holistic advocacy with social worker–attorney teams. Although
it doesn’t practice in delinquency court, LSC handles
legal issues regarding dependency, education, guardianship,
and immigration. It also offers an advice line and
drop-in clinics.
Last year, LSC provided counsel to 121 youth in dependency
court and helped 288 youth avoid foster care by
establishing guardianships. The organization is funded by
county money, foundations, grants, individual giving, and
some court fees.
A former teacher of bilingual third graders, Trillin now
manages LSC’s social workers and seven attorneys as well
as the two hundred lawyers on a pro bono panel. Everyone
on her team is either a “closet social worker or a closet
lawyer,” she quips. “They have an interest in both areas.
Family problems are complex and are rarely solved by a
legal solution only.”
For the kids, the process of receiving good representation
is “really powerful for them,” Trillin adds. “Even in cases
when they lose, they learn that a person believes in them.
And for the lawyer, the work is incredibly rewarding.”
LSC’s model, Trillin adds, is to be the attorneys for the minor—not
the guardian ad litem. “They are the client,” she
says. “And people are surprised to hear that young people
need lawyers.”
BASF’s Conflicts Panel
Since the 1970s the juvenile courts, which are a part of
San Francisco’s Unified Family Court, have looked to The
Bar Association of San Francisco’s Lawyer Referral and Information
Service Conflicts Panel to provide qualified and
experienced lawyers to represent minors that cannot be
represented by the public defender because of a conflict of
interest. Panel attorneys, like their public defender counterparts,
must be knowledgeable about public and private
resources, for each minor presents a myriad of problems
that have led him or her to juvenile court.
The panel attorney not only defends the criminal charge
but also acts as an advocate in special education proceedings,
school expulsion hearings, and program placement.
Panel attorneys access social workers, mental health consultants,
community-based programs, and other resources
necessary for a holistic representation of their clients.
22 FALL 2009

Some attorneys form relationships with their young clients
that may last into adulthood.
Three members of BASF’s Conflicts Panel, Lisa Dewberry,
Joseph Tomsic, and Ruth Edelstein represent a cross-section
of the panel and its experience.
Lisa Dewberry
Lisa Dewberry
“It’s the autonomy I like,” reports Lisa Dewberry. As a former
public defender and former supervising attorney for
the public defender’s juvenile division, Dewberry’s practice
has spanned both public and private offices. “I’m not
subjected to any policy considerations of a government office;
my practice, my resources, my experience, and what I
bring to each case have expanded dramatically by virtue of
a private practice.” There is camaraderie and a sharing of
experience broader than the support offered by the public
defender, for Dewberry practices in multiple jurisdictions,
gaining experience, insight, and a longer list of experts
and consultants to add to her already remarkable experience
during twenty-nine years, including twenty-three as
a public defender.
Though Dewberry’s caseload includes adults in the criminal
courts, the draw to work with youth is a strong one.
“We are so much more creative in our approach with
youth. We have real impact on the outcome for many of
these juveniles for we must do
more than defend the charges;
we work hard to shape futures
by presenting the court with
workable options.”
Too often the court is the only
“safety net” available to these
youth. Dewberry offers an example
of a young client who
faced robbery charges. His
mother, a crack addict, lost parental
rights by court order. With no one to care for him,
he found himself in the care of a stranger who not only
used him sexually but, “to earn his keep,” instructed him
how to commit strong-arm robberies. Although the case
was factually difficult to defend, “I convinced the prosecutor
to keep the case at YGC instead of sending this kid
downtown to be prosecuted as an adult; we not only found
real program support for this kid, the psychological evaluation
was so compelling that the two prosecutors were
clearly moved and became role models, letting this kid
know that they cared about him—that they cared about
his future. Sure, he has to be accountable, but what’s so
interesting about juvenile practice is that the very same
people who are prosecuting can actually play a therapeutic
role given the collaboration possible only at YGC.”
Joseph Tomsic
Joe Tomsic is a private practitioner specializing in juvenile
law and a member of BASF’s Conflicts Panel since 1991.
His private practice takes him to Marin, San Mateo, Sonoma,
and Santa Clara, but Tomsic finds that San Fran-
Joseph Tomsic
Photo courtesy of Joseph Tomsic

cisco’s juvenile court—unlike
those in neighboring counties—
creates an atmosphere conducive
to collaboration. “This collaborative
approach makes the
work here highly productive;
here, attorneys have ready access
to probation officers, district attorneys,
and bench officers. This
facilitates, rather than frustrates
the goals of the work.”
Tomsic finds that not only do panel attorneys share the
same passion for this work but they also are a highly skilled
group. “Panel attorneys know what they’re doing; we must
apply regularly to do panel work, hone and improve our
skills constantly, all of which is reviewed regularly. We are
not members of an agency or office where it’s difficult to
get fired.” According to Tomsic, attorneys who practice at
YGC are a tight-knit group and regularly exchange and
discuss ideas, research, pleadings, and experience. Practice
at YCG has been and remains a perfect fit for Joe Tomsic.
Ruth Edelstein
Former public defender, former city attorney with seven
years of private practice sandwiched in between, Ruth
Edelstein returned to private practice in 2004 and is highly
regarded at YGC, the Hall of Justice, and dependency
departments. Her clients, often accused of the most serious
crimes in adult and juvenile court, have also included
parents and children in the dependency system. Her
experience as a city attorney representing social workers
in dependency proceedings provided the additional background
unique to dependency court. In short, there’s
almost no aspect of juvenile work that Edelstein
“doesn’t get.”
Edelstein finds that working with youth is far more compelling
than adults. “Kids need and are open to relationships
with caring adults; they are truly looking for a way
to connect and this permits the practitioner a window of
opportunity to impact kids’ lives; relationships make the
critical difference.”
As a private attorney, “I have more time to develop these
relationships than I did when I ran a calendar in a courtroom.
There’s a freedom to connect, really connect, that’s
unique to private practice and highly rewarding.”
The stakes in criminal prosecutions are extraordinarily
high, and “if we can save our youth from the adult system,
we’ve done our job.” Kids make incredible mistakes,
rarely able to calculate the risks or consequences of their
actions given their developmental limitations. As a result,
many face a lifetime in prison if they reach adult court.
Therefore, keeping them in the juvenile system while they
mature is paramount to the work of the juvenile practitioner.
“Our job is to know our clients and advocate that each
child is a valuable human being, capable of change, deserving
to be saved from a lifetime of incarceration.”
A former lawyer, Leslie A. Gordon is a freelance legal journalist
living in San Francisco. She can be reached at leslie.
gordon@stanfordalumni.org.
Julie Traun, a private practitioner and attorney administrator
for BASF’s Lawyer Referral and Information Service’s Indigent
Defense Administration, assisted with this article.
Ruth Edelstein
24 FALL 2009