Juvenile Defense in Collin County

If your child has been charged with a crime, the case runs in a different system than an adult's, with its own rules. The Texas Family Code, not the Penal Code, governs most juvenile proceedings. The vocabulary is different: “petition” instead of indictment, “adjudication” instead of conviction, “disposition” instead of sentencing. The stakes, however, are not smaller. If your son or daughter has been taken into custody in McKinney, Plano, Frisco, or Allen, the time to talk to a Collin County juvenile defense lawyer is before your child gives a statement to anyone. A poorly handled juvenile case can shadow a young person’s college applications, military aspirations, professional licensing, employment background checks, and immigration status for decades. Kent Starr has practiced criminal law since 1997 and defends juveniles in Collin County and across North Texas with the personal attention that comes from working with a solo practitioner. His office is in McKinney, the county seat.

The Texas juvenile system technically applies to children between ages ten and seventeen at the time of the offense. Cases run through designated juvenile courts in each county, and the procedure differs from adult criminal court in important ways: detention hearings happen quickly, the burden remains beyond a reasonable doubt, but the rules around social history, school records, and probation conditions reflect the system’s stated rehabilitative purpose. Common allegations include drug possession and distribution, assault, school-based offenses, theft, criminal mischief, sexual offenses, and DWI-equivalent offenses. Many of these matters can be resolved without an adjudication, through deferred prosecution, first-offender programs, or negotiated dismissal, when the defense engages early and constructs an alternative narrative for the prosecutor and the court.

The most serious risk in many juvenile cases is certification, the legal process by which a juvenile court waives jurisdiction and transfers a child to adult criminal court under Section 54.02 of the Family Code. Certification is most common in cases involving capital murder, first-degree felonies, and serious violent offenses, and it can apply to children as young as fourteen. A certified juvenile faces the full adult Penal Code and the full range of adult punishment. An adult conviction also carries lifelong consequences. Resisting certification requires a sophisticated combination of psychological evaluation, school and family background presentation, expert witness work, and legal argument. Kent handles juvenile cases through the certification review process under §54.02, with the same care he brings to any felony jury trial.

Sealing and destruction of juvenile records is another area where careful work pays dividends years later. Texas allows automatic restriction of access for many juvenile records, but the protection is not absolute, and additional sealing may require petition. When the case moves into adulthood, related expunction or nondisclosure work can clear lingering arrest records that still appear on commercial background checks. For families dealing with allegations that overlap into drug crime cases or sexual assault charges, the firm coordinates juvenile and adult defense in the same engagement.

What matters most to the families Kent represents is the question parents actually ask: what happens to my child? The answer depends on the offense, the prior history, the school’s posture, the assigned prosecutor, and the judge’s track record on similar cases. Kent’s role is to compress that uncertainty into an honest assessment, then build the defense and the mitigation case in parallel, because in juvenile court, the disposition phase is often where the case is truly decided. As a solo practitioner, he handles each step himself; clients and parents are not handed off to a junior associate or a paralegal between hearings. He speaks Spanish and Portuguese in addition to English, which often matters in family meetings even when court proceedings are conducted in English.

How a Juvenile Case Moves Through Collin County

The process starts with a referral, not a booking photo. A child taken into custody in Collin County is not booked into the adult Collin County Detention Facility on Community Avenue. Texas Family Code §51.12 requires children to be held apart from adult inmates, in juvenile detention, and intake staff decide quickly whether the child stays there or goes home with a parent.

If your child is detained, Family Code §54.01 requires a detention hearing fast, generally no later than the second working day after the child is taken into custody, sooner when custody begins on a weekend. There is no money bail in juvenile court. The judge must release your child unless the State shows statutory grounds for holding them, such as flight risk, lack of suitable supervision, or danger to the public. A parent who shows up with school records and a concrete supervision plan gives the judge something real to weigh, and detention orders must be reviewed at further hearings, roughly every ten working days.

From there, the Collin County District Attorney’s Office decides whether to file a petition, the juvenile system’s version of a charging decision, and the case proceeds in the county’s designated juvenile court under Title 3 of the Family Code. The early settings cover detention review, discovery, and the question that shapes everything else: which track the State intends to pursue.

There are three tracks, and the distance between them is measured in decades. An ordinary, indeterminate disposition ends by the time the young person turns nineteen. For a listed set of grave offenses, the State can seek a determinate sentence under Family Code §53.045, which requires grand jury approval and allows up to forty years for the most serious categories, served first in the juvenile system with possible transfer to adult prison later. In the most serious cases, the State can ask the court to certify the child as an adult under §54.02, moving the case into the district courts at the Russell A. Steindam Courts Building, 2100 Bloomdale Road in McKinney, where Collin County felonies are heard.

Where the State’s Case Can Break Down

Your child’s statement may not be admissible. Family Code §51.095 sets strict rules for when a juvenile’s custodial statement can be used: the warnings must come from a magistrate, outside the presence of police, and the statement has to be signed under conditions the statute spells out. The procedure is stricter than what officers use with adults, and they get it wrong with some regularity. A confession that would survive in adult court can be suppressed in juvenile court because the magistrate step was skipped. Kent reviews the circumstances of every statement before he evaluates anything else about the case.

School cases run on two tracks at once. A hallway fight that a generation ago ended in the principal’s office can now produce a discipline proceeding under Chapter 37 of the Education Code, removal to a disciplinary alternative campus or expulsion, and a separate assault petition in juvenile court. What your child tells an assistant principal is generally not protected the way a custodial statement is, and a school resource officer in the room blurs the line between a school interview and an interrogation. School searches are judged under a lower standard than police searches, but that standard has limits, and evidence from a search that crossed them can be challenged. A concession made in the school proceeding can surface later in court, so the defense has to account for both tracks.

Group cases turn on who did what. Many juvenile petitions come out of group settings, a fight in a parking lot or a plan that took shape in a group chat. The State’s evidence often establishes that something happened without establishing what your child did. Identity and intent are live issues, and so is the difference between being present and being a participant. The law also recognizes that a fourteen-year-old’s judgment is not an adult’s, and that recognition has a real place in both the adjudication and the disposition phases.

Frequently Asked Questions About Juvenile Charges in Texas

Can my child really be certified and tried as an adult in Texas?

For serious felonies, yes. Under Family Code §54.02, the State can ask the juvenile court to waive its jurisdiction and certify a child as an adult, in some categories for children as young as fourteen. Certification is not automatic: the court must hold a hearing and weigh statutory factors, including the seriousness of the offense and the child’s background, maturity, and prospects for rehabilitation. The certification hearing is often the pivotal fight in the case.

Should my child answer questions from a school resource officer or detective?

Not before you have spoken with a lawyer. Children waive rights adults would never waive, especially at school, where refusing an adult’s questions feels impossible. Teach your child to say, politely, that their parents have asked them not to answer questions without a lawyer, then call one. Statements taken in violation of Family Code §51.095 can be challenged in court, but the safer statement is the one never given.

Will a juvenile adjudication follow my child into adulthood?

It can, unless the record work gets done. Texas restricts access to many juvenile records automatically, but the protection has gaps, and some records still surface on commercial background checks years later. Sealing under Chapter 58 of the Family Code closes most of those gaps, and for eligible cases the petition is worth filing as soon as the law allows. Kent treats record work as part of the engagement, not a footnote.

Starr Law, P.C. defends juveniles in Collin, Dallas, Tarrant, Denton, Rockwall, Kaufman, Ellis, Johnson, and Parker Counties. The firm offers free, confidential consultations for parents and guardians, and treats those conversations with the discretion families need when their child’s name is on a petition.

If your child has been detained, cited, or contacted by a school resource officer or detective, time is short. Call (214) 982-1408 to speak with Kent directly about what the petition says and what realistic outcomes are available given the facts.

How We Serve Collin County for Juvenile Defense

McKinney Juvenile Defense

Kent represents juvenile clients from McKinney, and their Collin County cases are heard in the county courts there.

Plano Juvenile Defense

Kent represents juvenile clients from Plano; their Collin County cases are heard in McKinney.

Frisco Juvenile Defense

Kent represents juvenile clients from Frisco; their Collin County cases are heard in McKinney, and Frisco cases can also file in Denton County.

Allen Juvenile Defense

Kent represents juvenile clients from Allen; their Collin County cases are heard in McKinney.

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Juvenile matters follow their own track through the Collin County courts. For the county-level picture, the firm's Collin County criminal defense hub explains which courts hear what and how cases start.