A juvenile case handled right can disappear. Handled wrong, it follows your child.
The juvenile system can correct, seal, and move on, or it can mark your child for life. The difference is decided in the first weeks, not at trial. We have defended juveniles against the most serious charges Texas brings, including a juvenile aggravated sexual assault of a child case where certification as an adult was denied and the case was dismissed.
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Two systems. Two futures. The fight is over which one your child enters.
The most dangerous moment in a juvenile case is the State’s motion to certify your child to stand trial as an adult. If that motion succeeds, your child leaves a system built around rehabilitation and enters one built around punishment: adult court, adult penalties, and an adult criminal record that follows them into every background check they will ever face.
Even a case that stays in juvenile court carries real consequences. An adjudication can affect school placement, college applications, and scholarships. Certain sex offense adjudications can carry registration requirements even for a juvenile. For a child without citizenship, the outcome can reach immigration status. None of this is automatic, and all of it depends on how the case is handled.
Here is the other side. Juvenile records in Texas are kept confidential, and many juvenile cases can later be sealed, which is the closest thing the law offers to making a case disappear. That door stays open only if the case ends the right way. The decisions made now determine whether it does.
We fight to keep the case in juvenile court. Then we fight the case.
Patrick McGuire is a former Dallas County prosecutor. He knows how the State builds a case against a child, and where those cases break.
Defeat certification first
When the State moves to try your child as an adult, that hearing becomes the whole case. We prepare for it like a trial. Patrick McGuire fought adult certification for a juvenile charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child. The court denied it, and the case was dismissed.
Challenge how your child’s statement was taken
Texas law places specific safeguards around statements taken from juveniles, and statements taken without them can be challenged. We scrutinize every police interview, every school questioning, and every word attributed to your child before it can be used.
Use the system’s own purpose
Juvenile court exists to rehabilitate, and that purpose creates outcomes adult court rarely offers. We push for resolutions that never become adjudications at all: dismissals, diversion, and dispositions that leave your child’s future intact.
Position the record to disappear
Sealing eligibility depends on how the case ends, so we make it part of the strategy from day one. The goal is not just to resolve the case. It is to resolve it in a way the law can later erase.
Results in juvenile cases
The State moved to certify our client as an adult on one of the most serious charges in Texas law. Patrick McGuire defeated the certification, and the case was dismissed.
- Dismissed Juvenile aggravated sexual assault of a child Adult certification denied
Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Every case depends on its own facts.
Juvenile Defense: the questions clients ask first.
Will my child be tried as an adult?
Will this follow my child forever?
Should my child talk to the police or the school?
My child was just detained. What happens now?
The call is free. Waiting is not.
Evidence goes stale, witnesses move, and deadlines pass whether you have hired a lawyer or not. The earlier we start, the more we can do.
Free consultation · Available 24/7 · info@mycasedismissed.com