Chief Probation Officer Charles Brown and co-worker Becky Kolata said the Logan Circuit Court has been working on a "Teen Court" program which would use local students as jurors, defenders and prosecutors in handling minor incidents that take place in the schools such as truancy and smoking in restrooms.
Brown said the program would offer two benefits — it would teach young people basic civics lessons about how government works and it would unclog the courts with non-misdemeanor cases.
"We (want) to press upon you the need for a new program we are doing which is called Teen Court,” Brown said.
"It is administered in our schools by students who form a court and jury. We are asking you to impose a $5 fee on citations to fund this program."
Brown said Logan's magistrate court and circuit court have both agreed to the $5 fee to help fund the new project which will only deal with low-level cases and not felonies or misdemeanors that would fall under the jurisdiction of municipal, magistrate and circuit courts. Other counties across the state have also set up Teen Courts, Brown said.
Logan Attorney Kendal Partlow said the city council could impose the $5 fee if it wished for the program and Councilman Jim Guy said he thought it would be a good idea.
"Teen Court can be run from anywhere and we will probably run it from the High Schools," Brown said when asked about the project. "It would probably be organized through one of the student clubs. It will mostly deal with situations like truancy or smoking in school or other non-misdemeanor offenses which will be judged by a jury of the student's peers and sentences will include community service. These cases will come through the prosecutor's office then through teen court. It would not fundamentally change the way the cases are handled just remove smaller cases from the court system."
Kolata said the Logan Police Department has an officer on duty at the high school — Dave Adkins — who could recommend cases for Teen Court.
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