When It Is a Child
ORC 2152 — a different court, a different vocabulary, one door out of it
The school section on this site ends by saying the juvenile system is a separate court with its own rules and its own vocabulary, and that nothing on that page describes it. This is that page. Almost every word is different, and the differences are not cosmetic.
Who handles this in Ohio: Ohio State Bar Association lawyer referral; and legal aid programs and the state offices, listed in the Ohio directory.
| Adult court | Juvenile court | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Adult courtDefendant | Juvenile courtChild, alleged to be a delinquent child | Why it mattersThe proceeding is about the child rather than about an offense alone |
| Adult courtConviction | Juvenile courtAdjudication | Why it mattersAn adjudication is not a criminal conviction, and questions that ask about convictions are asking something else |
| Adult courtSentence | Juvenile courtDisposition | Why it mattersThe list of what a court may order is its own statute and looks nothing like a sentencing range |
| Adult courtGuilty plea | Juvenile courtAdmission | Why it mattersSame function, different word, and the paperwork uses the juvenile one |
The right to a lawyer is wider here than it is for an adult. In adult court, appointed counsel is tied to whether imprisonment is actually imposed. In juvenile court the statute gives a child a right to representation at all stages of the proceedings, and Ohio courts have read it as attaching regardless of whether confinement is on the table. The parents, custodian, or a person standing in the place of a parent have the same entitlement, and where a party appears without counsel the court is required to find out whether they know they have the right.
The right attaches on the filing of a complaint in juvenile court, or on the initial appearance there. That is earlier than people expect, and it is the reason the first hearing is not a formality.
The other thing that makes this court different is that a case can leave it. Transfer, which everyone calls bindover, moves a child out of juvenile court and into adult criminal court, and once that happens none of the vocabulary above applies any more.
| Kind of transfer | When a child is eligible | What the court does |
|---|---|---|
| Kind of transferMandatory | When a child is eligibleA category one offense at sixteen or older | What the court doesTransfer as the transfer section provides |
| Kind of transferMandatory | When a child is eligibleFourteen or fifteen, probable cause for a category one offense, and a prior adjudication for a category one or two offense | What the court doesSame |
| Kind of transferDiscretionary | When a child is eligibleFourteen or older, charged with an act that would be a felony if an adult did it, and not subject to mandatory transfer | What the court doesFollows the transfer section, which includes an amenability hearing |
Amenability is the whole of a discretionary bindover, and it is a hearing about the child. Where transfer is discretionary rather than mandatory, the question is not only what was allegedly done. It is whether the child is amenable to care or rehabilitation within the juvenile system. That is a hearing with evidence about a particular child, which is exactly the hearing a mandatory transfer does not get.
- Age at the time of the act charged is what the transfer sections run on, not age at the hearing.
- Category one and category two are defined terms. Category one is aggravated murder, murder, or an attempt at either. Category two is a short list of serious violent felonies: voluntary manslaughter, kidnapping, rape, aggravated arson, aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, and involuntary manslaughter that is a felony of the first degree. Most juvenile cases, drug possession among them, are on neither list, and which list an offense sits on decides which door the case is standing at.
- The dispositions a juvenile court may order are set out in their own section and include things an adult sentencing range has no equivalent of.
Juvenile records, and whether and when they can be sealed or expunged, run on their own sections, which this site sets out on the page about sealing a juvenile record. They are not the adult sealing rules. Anyone told that a juvenile record simply disappears at eighteen is being told something the statute does not say.
Sources for this section (9)
- ORC 2152.02 — Definitions, including delinquent child
- ORC 2151.352 — Right to counsel in juvenile court
- ORC 2152.19 — Orders of disposition
- Argersinger v. Hamlin, 407 U.S. 25 (1972) — No jail sentence without counsel, misdemeanors included
- Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963) — A state must provide counsel to a defendant who cannot afford one
- ORC 2152.10 — Children eligible for mandatory or discretionary transfer
- ORC 2152.12 — Transfer of a case to adult court, and the amenability hearing
- ORC 2151.356 — Sealing of juvenile court records
- ORC 2953.32 — Sealing or expungement of a conviction, eligibility and waiting periods
Legal information, not legal advice. Verified as of September 2026. Applying it to a particular situation is the work of a licensed Ohio attorney.