Rule 5.752.Initial hearing; detention hearings; time limit on custody; setting jurisdiction hearing

Where a child is not taken into custody and the district attorney or probation officer decides a petition or notice of probation violation should be filed, it goes to the clerk as soon as possible and the initial hearing is set within 15 court days.

Where the child is in custody, the first clock is 48 hours, excluding noncourt days, from being taken into custody: the child must be released unless a petition or notice was filed within that time or beforehand. A child who willfully misrepresents their age as 18 or older, causing an unavoidable investigative delay, gets the same 48 hours — but measured from the moment the true age is determined. And a child certified to juvenile court from adult court must be released within 48 hours of certification unless a petition has been filed.

The detention hearing itself runs on three different deadlines depending on what is alleged. It must begin as soon as possible and no later than 48 hours, excluding noncourt days, from being taken into custody where the child was taken on a warrant or by the probation officer’s authority, or where the child is not on probation or parole and is alleged to have committed a misdemeanor not involving violence, the threat of violence, or a weapon.

It must begin no later than the expiration of the next court day after the petition or notice is filed where a felony is alleged, where a misdemeanor involving violence, the threat of violence or a weapon is alleged, or where the child is already a ward on probation or parole.

And it runs from arrival at a detention facility in the county — 48 hours, excluding noncourt days — where the child was taken into custody in another county and transported in, was ordered transported on a transfer between juvenile courts, or is a ward temporarily held in a secure facility pending a change of placement. A child taken into custody for violating a written home supervision condition gets the same 48 hours.

Missing the deadline has a consequence, and it is stated: the child must be released immediately — or, where the child is a ward awaiting a change of placement, must be placed in a suitable nonsecure facility.