A CHINS or a Child in Need of Service is a court case where Juvenile Court accepted a petition from a parent, guardian, or school to deal with alleged troubled youth.  The petitioner or the person filing the CHINS must show a judge one of four types of CHINS.

One is if the child regularly runs away from home and that is called a CHINS Runaway. Second is a Stubborn CHINS, which is someone who constantly disobeys the lawful commands of a parent or a legal guardian.  Third is a CHINS Truant, who is a child that misses school on a regular basis; and the fourth is a Habitual School Offender, which is a child who constantly fails to follow the school rules. 

As many people may know, Middleboro, Massachusetts voted overwhelmingly in favor to change a bi-law that makes public profanity a civil infraction.  It does not mean that people go to court for a crime, but to pay a small monetary fine.  The question is in terms of the constitutionality of it regarding First Amendment Rights and whether or not this violates the First Amendment Rights where a town or government can say what you can say or not say.

There are limits on the First Amendment, but it appears questionable whether this would be ultimately constitutionally challenged or not. 

In Massachusetts there is a General Law, Chapter 90, Section 10 saying that you need to have a license in Massachusetts and that is where you look up the standard, but what the court has to be able to prove, is that the person actually operated a motor vehicle, did so in a way and without having a valid license to operate.  The way though does not mean public way and the way is more inclusive then somebody who is operating under the influence of alcohol.  The person does not need to have knowledge that he/she lacked a valid license, but it is one of the more minor criminal offenses and there does need to be documentation that has to be introduced to prove the charge.  The mere fact that a person does not have his/her license on them is not enough to prove his/her unlicensed status.

Generally, they need to get a certificate from the Registry; which is not easy to obtain, and a lot of times because of it being such a minor offense, the prosecution might not go to the effort. 

Does a school official have reason to believe that a student suffers from a disability that can affect your school performance or access; or they have an obligation for the students to have an evaluation; or that student has already been determined to have a disability?  The school must consider the need to reconvene the students education team in response to inappropriate conduct.  There is a lot more due process rights and sometimes with issues of disciplinary proceedings, it is recommended that if there are possibilities about a possible need for an IEP, that there be a request for an evaluation made by the parent.

This entitles eligible children with disabilities to “free and appropriate public education that includes special education related services.”  Special education is defined especially designed instructions at no cost to the parent to meet the child(s) disability; and this includes not only instructors conducting the classrooms, in the home, hospitals and institutions and other settings with related services.

The purpose behind a bankruptcy is to give the honest, but unfortunate debtor a “fresh start”.  There is an automatic stay in a Bankruptcy that once is it is filed, that generally that all collection activities or foreclosures, repossessions, court actions are put on hold.

There are two main types of bankruptcies.  One is the simple bankruptcy, which is called Chapter 7 Bankruptcy.  Where the idea is that the debtor tries to keep the property and finds that their property is hopefully exempt property while the trustee is seeing whether the debtor has non-exempt property, and then the trustee will try and distribute those proceeds to the creditors.

A Guardian ad Litem (“GAL”) is someone who is supposed to be neutral and has some expertise relating to child custody issues and generally they are a mental health clinicians or an attorney.  If you can try and provide as much factual detail without getting into blaming the other side or being defensive, admitting is one thing, second is admitting the mistakes that you made; admitting has more credibility; being calm and being able to present what happened in a logical fashion, even if it means writing down an outline of what you will discuss with the GAL. Being polite to the GAL and not overly emotional. If they come to your home, have a clean and neat home, understanding that the GAL is likely to take a tour of your home, including the children’s bedrooms. Having a list of potential witnesses or contacts and you should not have just relatives or close friends, as many people that have no reason to be for one side or the other; such as pediatricians, teachers, coaches, and guidance counselors. People that are more neutral that can provide and be less biased are general things that are helpful for the GAL. These are just a few tips when meeting with a GAL.

If you are representing yourself or filling out a Financial Statement for an attorney. A simple thing that the court requires is that all of the boxes be filled out. Therefore, if something is zero (-0-) rather than leaving it blank, you need to put down a zero or the court will likely return that to you. Some of the time, there are difficulties filling out particular boxes, meaning the income changes or bonus changes; what generally makes sense is to make is a good faith estimate as you can and then most importantly is provide a * or a footnote to see an additional page and then explain on how you came up with the figure and what it is based on.  For example, if your bonus fluctuates or your overtime fluctuates, you might say that based on my last years earnings it averaged out to this per week and you put down that figure and explain that it fluctuates year to year, week to week or why it might be higher or lower. 

One of the great things people are not aware of is, if things are not easy to explain, then additional sheets to explain those.  Generally, you can get a lot of information from a pay stub.  It is important that you list everything weekly when asked, even though sometimes people are paid by-weekly. 

Generally now days in Massachusetts anytime you are charged with a crime, it is very likely that either the prosecutor will request or the judge will on his/her own issue something called an 802 Warning. An 802 Warning simply means that if your charged or arrested for a new offense that occurs after the date of your arraignment on one charge that you can be held in jail for up to 60 days without bail. It does not mean that is automatically going to occur, but there is that warning and what can happen is that there can be a bail relocate and an 802 revocation if you end up being charged with another crime which the DA can ask for and you can be held for up to 60 days.

Again, if you have had allegedly committed a crime prior to getting the warning issued, even if you are not charged until after that date, and it should be not be a factor, but it will hurt you.