Secure youth treatment facilities

The law requires people facing extended confinement to stay in a secure youth treatment facility while the case is decided, while setting hearing, trial, evidence, and review rules.

What the law does ​

• Requires custody in a secure youth treatment facility after a qualifying petition is filed and through the proceedings if probable cause is found.
• Requires a probable-cause hearing within 10 calendar days, unless waived, and allows continuances only for good cause.
• Allows probable cause to rely partly or entirely on qualifying expert reports and sworn testimony from current or honorably retired law-enforcement officers, while preserving cross-examination rights.
• Requires trial within 60 days after a probable-cause finding unless good cause, a waiver, or the person's request or consent supports a later date.
• Requires a jury verdict to be unanimous and proof beyond a reasonable doubt; a jury trial may be waived only by both the person and prosecutor.
• Limits each continued-detention period to three years and requires the court to base its length on trial evidence and a treatment-team clinical assessment of individual needs.
• Applies criminal-case discovery rules and requires new detention applications before an ordered period ends if further detention is sought.

Who it affects ​

• People confined in secure youth treatment facilities whom probation departments believe would be physically dangerous if released because they have serious difficulty controlling dangerous behavior.
• County probation departments, prosecuting attorneys, courts, treatment teams, and facility staff handling continued-detention cases.

Context ​

Continued detention can be ordered only after proof beyond a reasonable doubt, for no more than three years at a time.