LAWTON – After decades of moving from rented space to rented space, the Teen Court program has a place it can call its own.
The program will celebrate its new home with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 4 p.m. May 1 at the building, 1002 SW D Ave. in Lawton. People attending the ceremony will get a chance to meet the Teen Court team, tour the courtroom and learn about the program.
Teen Court participants will benefit from the new home, Executive Director Marcia Frazier said in an April 15 interview.
“It is a beautiful space,” she said. “It is a home and an office, so I really believe it’s going to make them feel like they’ve got something they’ve never had before.” The Teen Court process Teen Court, which receives financial support from the United Way of Southwest Oklahoma as well as grants and donations, serves juveniles ages 10 to 17 who have either received a traffic citation or are facing misdemeanor charges. The program, which allows first-time offenders to avoid having formal charges filed if they plead guilty and appear before a jury of their peers, does not handle felony cases.
The process begins when a juvenile either receives a traffic ticket or is arrested on a misdemeanor charge. The juvenile and their parents/ guardians go to the juvenile bureau at the Comanche County Courthouse, where they are interviewed about what happened.
Bureau staffers will check the juvenile’s name against a database to determine whether that person is a firsttime offender. If the juvenile’s name is not in the database, staffers ask them if they will admit guilt.
Assuming the juvenile admits guilt, the bureau will recommend that the district attorney who oversees juvenile cases refer the case to Teen Court. Once Frazier gets a referral, she calls the client’s parents or guardians to let them know that the client’s case will be scheduled for court within the next couple of weeks.
“We want to get them out within a week or two of the offense, because the sooner the better,” Frazier said.
Teen Court takes place from 5 to 6:30 p.m. every Thursday in the courtrooms on the courthouse’s fourth floor. Frazier assigns each client a defense attorney, who will work with the client and their parents to prepare the case.
When preparations are complete, the defense attorney will show the parents or guardians where to sit in the gallery and take the client into the courtroom to face the judge and jury, which is made up of the client’s peers.
“They have to look at the jury, and they have to admit their guilt and say what they did wrong,” Frazier said. “Nine times out of 10, it brings them to tears.”
After all the evidence is presented, the judge gives the jurors a copy of the sentencing grid and excuses them to deliberate. The jurors deliberate for 10 to 15 minutes before announcing the sentence.
Then the judge asks the client if they accept the sentence. Clients are not required to accept, but their case will be sent back to the juvenile bureau and a juvenile judge will be assigned to it.
Frazier explains to the client that if their case is sent back, they will likely have to pay roughly $1,000 in court costs, Frazier said.
“They’re given the opportunity to turn it down, but they usually say, ‘Yes,’” she said.
After sentencing After a client is sentenced, Frazier will sit down with them and their parents or guardians to explain the program’s requirements, which include serving as a Teen Court juror and performing community service. Clients have 90 days to complete their sentences.
Frazier does not check up on the clients for the first six weeks of their sentence, but she will check up on them if they aren’t making progress with their community service after six weeks, she said.
“I keep their case files, and I keep on top of them,” Frazier said. “And I kind of mother them along until they get it done.”
But there’s more to Teen Court than serving on a jury and performing community service. Clients also receive 18 hours of education on substance abuse, conflict resolution and anger management, and faulty thinking – or classes on traffic safety if they have a traffic ticket.
The traffic program saves teens from having to pay a fine, and clients who successfully complete the misdemeanor program can avoid having a criminal conviction on their record.
More than 120 Teen Court clients had their cases heard and were sentenced by their peers in 2024, according to a Teen Court pamphlet. The program also helped 1,362 juveniles learn more about topics including faulty reasoning, conflict management and anger resolution.
Teen Court clients performed 1,145 hours of community service last year, according to the pamphlet.
Frazier said many clients who complete the program successfully later return as volunteers.
“And when they come back as volunteers, they are amazing volunteers because they’ve been on both sides of that story,” she said.
For more details on Teen Court or to RVSP for the ribbon- cutting ceremony, email teencourt@lawtonmail.com.