Three Questions for the Regional Counsels

After attending the local Criminal Defense Lawyers Association luncheon featuring our Regional Counsel Jeffrey Deen last week, the most important questions that need to be answered right away (from a list of many questions) have crystallized in my mind. I intend to email each of the RCs this evening with these three questions. I will report to you their answers as they come in, or lack of response if I don't hearing anything by next Monday.

Question 1: In your meetings with various officials to help you set up your offices and prepare to operate, have you met specifically with the judges assigned to hear juvenile dependency cases? If not, when do you intend to do so?

[ed: In Orange County, the answer to the first part of question one is no.]

Question 2: Florida Statutes sections 39.402(8)(c)(2 & 3) state the following:

(c) At the shelter hearing, the court shall:

2. Inform the parents or legal custodians of their right to counsel to represent them at the shelter hearing and at each subsequent hearing or proceeding, and the right of the parents to appointed counsel, pursuant to the procedures set forth in s. 39.013; and

3. Give the parents or legal custodians an opportunity to be heard and to present evidence.

Given your requirements for certifying a conflict before a second parent is appointed an attorney from among private counsel, and given the statutory requirement that eligible parents who appear shall have counsel appointed at the shelter hearing (or any other hearing or proceeding if it is the parent's first appearance) , what is your plan to comply with the law in this regard when more than one parent is present at the shelter hearing?

Question 3: Please consider the following two brief hypotheticals. In the first, a child is sheltered for exposure to domestic violence between mother and father. Both parents appear at the shelter hearing and either deny everything or else each claim that the other is the aggressor. In the second hypothetical situation, a child is sheltered with multiple fractures. Both parents, who may or may not live together, appear and each declares that they have no idea how the fractures were caused. DCF may or may not suspect one of the parents, but is not in a position to prove anything yet.

Having considered those hypothetical but typical situations, how will your office determine whether or not there is a conflict that requires appointment of private counsel? Will you interview both parents and then select one to represent, having also received information from the other? Will you be willing to declare that a conflict exists on the face of the circumstances, or do you propose another method of certifying that a conflict exists?