Trial Summary: Teen’s Charges Rejected After Failed Police De-Escalation

I worked on a case that involved a juvenile (called ‘B’ to preserve confidentiality and privacy) who was charged in Travis County with assaulting his mother, a Class A misdemeanor. B is 15 years old and suffers from mental health difficulties, including ADHD, anxiety, and depression. B’s mother had called the police because he was refusing to do his homework, becoming aggressive, and not taking his medication. 

When the police arrived on the scene, the officers explained that they couldn’t help unless B had done something to a family member that would put them in danger. At that point, B’s mother said he had pulled her hair for about one second. When asked to rate the pain on a scale of 1-10, with 1 the least and 10 the most, she said, “About a 2. More like a 1.” That report of physical violence was enough for the officers to charge B with assault, put the child in handcuffs, and take him to the juvenile justice center.

The family hired Cofer & Connelly, PLLC, mostly due to our extensive experience handling juvenile matters. They insisted that they never wanted their son to be charged with a crime and had only wanted some help to de-escalate the situation. B had never been violent before and had immediately become medication-compliant.

Wanting to be as proactive as possible, I identified his juvenile probation officer and talked with him about what happened and what the future of the case could look like. I was able to get him to agree that B was compliant with his conditions of release and did not require juvenile services. With that information, I sat down with the prosecuting attorney and explained the home situation and the police’s overreaction to it. She reviewed the file and an email the mother had sent to me clearly stating that she didn’t want her son prosecuted.

The prosecuting attorney quickly agreed that B was not someone who needed to be in the juvenile justice system and rejected the charge.