Source: http://williampfeifer.com/law/alabama-rules-of-juvenile-procedure/arjp-rule-13-issuance-of-notices-and-service-of-summons
Timestamp: 2017-10-22 06:22:14
Document Index: 387274262

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 12', '§ 629', '§ 629', '§ 12', '§ 12', '§ 12', '§ 12', '§ 12', '§ 12', '§ 12', '§ 12', '§ 12']

ARJP Rule 13: Issuance of Notices and Service of Summons
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Rule 13. Issuance of notices and service of summons
The following procedures shall apply for the issuance of notices and service of summons in delinquency, child-in-need-of-supervision, and dependency cases in juvenile courts:
(A) Summons. Service of summons shall be pursuant to the Alabama Rules of Civil Procedure, except as hereinafter provided:
(1) After a petition alleging that a child is delinquent, in need of supervision, or dependent has been filed, the clerk of the circuit court shall ensure that summonses are issued to the child, if he or she is 12 or more years of age; to the parent or parents, legal guardian, or other legal custodian; and to other persons who appear to the juvenile court to be proper or necessary parties to the proceedings, requiring them to appear personally before the juvenile court at the time fixed to answer or testify as to the allegations of the petition. A copy of the petition shall be attached to each summons.
(2) There shall be no service by publication of any proceeding in the juvenile court except in proceedings to terminate parental rights.
(3) The service of the summons shall give the juvenile court jurisdiction over the persons served, but the inability to serve any party shall not deprive the court of jurisdiction to proceed.
(4) An adult who is a party may waive service of the summons by written stipulation or by voluntary appearance at the hearing. A person who is summoned but who fails to appear, without reasonable cause for the failure to appear, may be proceeded against for indirect criminal contempt.
(5) A party not served under this rule may, for good cause shown, petition the juvenile court in writing for a modification of any order or judgment of the juvenile court. The juvenile court may dismiss this petition if, after a preliminary investigation, the juvenile court finds that the petition is without substance. If the juvenile court finds that the petition should be reviewed, the juvenile court may conduct a hearing upon the issues raised by the petition and may make any orders authorized by law relative to the issues as it deems proper.
(B) Notices of Detention Hearings, Shelter-Care Hearings, and 72-hour Hearings. Oral or written notice of all detention hearings and shelter-care hearings in delinquency and child-in-need-of-supervision cases, stating the date, time, place, and purpose of the hearings and that the child, parent, legal guardian, or legal custodian has the right to counsel, shall be given by a juvenile probation officer to the parent, legal guardian, or legal custodian if he or she can be found and to the child if the child is over 12 years of age. Oral or written notice of the 72-hour hearing in dependency cases, stating the date, time, place, and purpose of the hearing and the right to counsel, shall be given to the parent, legal guardian, or legal custodian if he or she can be found.
(C) Notices of Other Hearings. Except for detention, shelter-care, and 72- hour hearings, written notice of all hearings and hearings on the merits of the petition as otherwise provided in this rule shall be provided to all parties in the proceedings and shall include the date, time, place, and purpose of the hearings.
(D) Notices to Foster Parents, Preadoptive Parents, and Relative Caregivers. The juvenile court shall ensure that foster parents, preadoptive parents, and relative caregivers of a child in foster care under the responsibility of the State are notified, orally or in writing, of the date, time, and place of any juvenile court proceeding to be held with respect to a child in their care.
[Amended eff. 5-1-94; Amended eff. 6-22-2007; Amended eff. 2-1-2008; Amended eff. 1-9-2009; Amended 7-14-2011, eff. 10-1-2011.]
Notice by publication, when personal service cannot be effected, is not provided for in most juvenile cases. Effectiveness of this notice must be balanced against the necessity for immediacy of the hearing and the requirement of confidentiality of juvenile court proceedings. Rule 27 provides modification procedure when a party has not been served personally or by publication.
Rule 23(B) provides for a waiver of the right to notice of the hearing. See also § 12-15-53(e), Ala. Code 1975, providing for a waiver of service of summons.
Comment to Rule 13(E) Adopted effective June 22, 2007
Subsection (E) was added to comply with 42 U.S.C. § 629h(b)(1), which conditions funding for the Alabama Court Improvement Program grant for fiscal year 2007 on the requirement that the Supreme Court have in effect a rule requiring state courts to ensure that foster parents, pre-adoptive parents, and relative caregivers of a child in foster care under the responsibility of the State are notified of any proceeding to be held with respect to the child. The language in subsection (E) was taken verbatim from 42 U.S.C. § 629h(b)(1).
Comment to Amendment to Rule 13 Effective February 1, 2008
Rule 13 was amended to clarify when summons and notices of hearings should be provided in juvenile court proceedings.
The word “service” was added in place of “notice” in subsection (A)(2) to track the language in Rule 4.3, Ala. R. Civ. P. The first sentence in subsection (A)(4) was added to track the language in § 12-15-53(e), Ala. Code 1975, except that the statute exempts the child from this waiver provision; that exemption was not included in the amended rule. Also, the words “indirect criminal” were added before the word “contempt” to specify the type of contempt proceeding that may be brought for failing to have reasonable cause to appear as a result of a summons.
Subsection (B) in its entirety is new and tracks § 12-15-60(b), Ala. Code 1975.
Subsection (C) was added to ensure that written notice of all hearings (not including detention and shelter-care hearings as provided in subsection (B) and hearings on the merits of the petition as provided in subsection (A)(1)) are provided to all parties in the proceedings.
A title was added to subsection (D), formerly subsection (E) (adopted effective June 22, 2007).
Comment to Amendment to Rule 13 Effective January 9, 2009
Subsection (A)(1) of this rule was amended to clarify that the clerk of the court shall ensure that summonses are issued in delinquency, dependency, and child-in-need-of-supervision cases to the parties listed requiring them to appear personally before the juvenile court at the time fixed to answer or to testify as to the allegations of the petition. This language is to be read together with Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-122(a), which provides that “[a]fter a petition alleging delinquency, in need of supervision, or dependency has been filed, the juvenile court shall direct the issuance of summonses ….” It is the duty of the clerk of the court to issue summonses. See Rule 4.I.(C), Alabama Rules of Judicial Administration, and Ala. Code 1975, § 12-17-94(a)(1). In addition, the provision requiring that a summons be served at least 24 hours prior to the hearing was deleted.
Subsection (A)(4) was amended to clarify that an adult party may waive service of the summons to be consistent with Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-122(d).
Subsection (B) was amended to provide that oral or written notice of all detention and shelter-care hearings in delinquency and in-need-of-supervision cases, stating the date, time, place, and purpose of the hearings and the right to counsel, shall be given by a juvenile probation officer to the parent, legal guardian, or legal custodian, if they can be found, and to the child if the child is over 12 years of age. This language was added to be consistent with Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-207(b).
Language was also added to subsection (B) to provide that oral or written notice of the 72-hour hearing in dependency cases, stating the date, time, place, and purpose of the hearing and the right to counsel, shall be given to the parent, legal guardian, or legal custodian, if he or she can be found. This language was added to be consistent with Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-308(b). Similar changes were made to subsection (C) to make that subsection consistent with subsection (B).
Subsection (D) was amended to provide that foster parents, preadoptive parents, and relative caregivers are to be given notice, orally or in writing, of the date, time, and place of any juvenile court proceeding being held with respect to a child in their care. This language was intended to be consistent with Ala. Code 1975, § 12-15-307, which is part of the Dependency and Termination of Parental Rights Article of the Alabama Juvenile Justice Act of 2008. A “preadoptive parent” is a person who has been approved by an agency to adopt a child but has not been granted adoptive-parent status by court order.
Comment to Amendment to Rule 13 Effective October 1, 2011
Subsection (A)(5) contains the language from former Rule 27, which has been rescinded. For purposes of subsection (D), relative caregivers would not include kinship guardians defined in Ala. Code 1975, §§ 12-15-301(6) and 38-12-32(5), effective October 1, 2010. Because Rule 1(E) provides that, for purposes of these Rules, the term “legal guardian” also includes a “kinship guardian,” a kinship guardian would receive notices of juvenile court proceedings as would a legal guardian. Other changes to this rule were technical.
Note from the reporter of decisions: The order amending Rule 13, effective February 1, 2008, and adopting the Comment to Amendment to Rule 13 Effective February 1, 2008, is published in that volume of Alabama Reporter that contains Alabama cases from 972 So.2d.