Cheryl Cutting, Author at Juvenile Justice Information ExchangeJuvenile Justice Information Exchange

Cheryl Cutting

Cheryl Cutting is an assistant public defender in the Juvenile Division of the Atlantic Judicial Circuit, which covers six counties in southeast Georgia. She graduated from the Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University before practicing with the public defender’s office. Cheryl works primarily in the juvenile division, representing children up to age of 17 who are charged with offenses in either the juvenile or superior courts. She is also a participant in the Southern Public Defender Training Center, advocating for equal access to quality representation in the criminal justice system.

Talking Back to Zero Tolerance

By Cheryl Cutting | December 5, 2011

In the year that I have worked as a juvenile defender, I have noticed patterns in the types of cases that land on my desk. For instance, now that the school year is in full swing, the overwhelming majority of my juvenile caseload arises from school discipline issues. It seems -- at least here in southeast Georgia -- as though schools are either no longer interested or no longer equipped to handle discipline in-house. Almost every public school in my rural circuit has police presence in the form of the School Resource Officer (SRO), a uniformed police officer who maintains an office on the school campus. These officers maintain such a vigilant school presence to deter criminal activity such as drug possession/sale, weapon possession and other violent or dangerous activity. The reality is quite different. Increasingly, local school administrators are relying on these SROs and a broad Georgia statute that criminalizes “disruption or interference with operation of public schools” to handle children with behavioral problems. What exactly are the definitions for “disruption” and “interference”?

Where is Due Process in Juvenile Court?

By Cheryl Cutting | October 5, 2011

“They can’t do that!”

This quickly became my mantra when I started as a juvenile defender nearly a year ago. My colleagues heard it so often they joked about recording me and just playing it back while I was observing court proceedings so that I wouldn’t have to speak. Unfamiliar with the differences between how the criminal justice system treats juvenile and adult offenders, I was clearly unprepared for some of the things I witnessed when I first arrived in juvenile court. You see, juvenile courts are quasi-criminal, meaning many of the aspects I expected to see in a criminal court are present, but the result of juvenile delinquency proceedings is supposed to be more rehabilitative than punitive, and “in the best interest of the child.”

What I learned this to mean is that prosecutors, judges, and a state’s department of juvenile justice have much more latitude to make recommendations for a child’s “best interests.” Because of this latitude, I have actually heard a judge say, “Don’t even think about requesting bond until you tell us where the weapon is,” at a detention hearing. What happened to the presumption of innocence, or the right to avoid self-incrimination?