Bar panel urges: unchain the children: committee takes issue with 'indiscriminate shackling' of juveniles.

When children are charged with crimes, they are supposed to be treated more gently in juvenile court where the goal is to help, not hammer, them.

But it has been the practice in Miami-Dade County, and some other jurisdictions in Florida, to treat kids more harshly than adults charged with serious crimes. Never mind that they are charged with misdemeanors or are only accused and not yet convicted. All children have been handcuffed and shackled at their ankles with 16-inch chains, forcing them to shuffle into the courtroom.

Carlos Martinez, chief assistant public defender for Miami-Dade's 11th Circuit, brought that emotion-charged issue to The Florida Bar's Legal Needs of Children Committee at the General Meeting in Tampa September 14.

After a spirited debate, including showing pictures of Miami children in chains, the committee voted 15-0 (with three abstentions) that both the committee and entire Florida Bar should take a position opposing the indiscriminate use of chains and shackles in juvenile courtrooms throughout Florida.

A second motion passed 13-0 (with five abstentions) to encourage the adoption of a ban on the indiscriminate use of chains and shackles in juvenile courtrooms through court rule, legislation, and executive branch policy.

"This is better than I was hoping for. This is excellent," Martinez, vice chair of the committee, said after the meeting.

"Number 1, it provides more visibility for the issue so that other members of The Florida Bar will actually know the disgusting nature of what's happening in our juvenile courts. Through this process of getting the Bar to look at it and to approve it, hopefully, it will shed light on it, and hopefully changes will happen even before The Florida Bar takes its formal position."

Shackling children first shocked Martinez' consciousness when he was visiting a Tallahassee courtroom and watched an 11-year-old girl, only 3-foot-7-inches tall, led to juvenile court wearing a belly chain connected to both handcuffs and leg irons--usually reserved for adults who are flight risks or charged with first-degree murder. He later learned it is a statewide practice in Florida to shackle children detained by the Department of Juvenile Justice when they are transported to court, and the chains often remain as they stand before judges across the state, regardless of the child's age, height, weight, gender, offense, risk of flight, or threat to public safety.

After administrative efforts failed to end...