Indigent juvenile defense bill signed into law
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ALPENA -- Indigent juveniles facing delinquency cases will now be able to obtain court appointed attorneys funded by the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission (MIDC).
Indigent means that a person is not able to afford a private lawyer.
The News previously reported in March 2025 that a bill from 2023 was stalled in the state legislature that would allow the MIDC to oversee and fund the legal defense of Michigan's children.
That bill was reintroduced as Senate Bill 81 of 2025. It was passed by the Senate on March 18, 2025, according to the Michigan Legislature.
The bill did not see any action for over a year until it was placed on the order of second reading in the House on July 2. The House passed the bill on July 3 with amendments. The Senate approved the bill with the amendments that same day.
The bill was approved and signed into law by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on July 21.
Prior to the bill's passage, individual counties decided how they would fund the legal defense of indigent juveniles. Attorney Julie Miller said that currently, the courts in Alpena have two local attorneys that act as legal counsel for indigent juveniles.
According to data from the Michigan Committee on Juvenile Justice, there were 38 juvenile crimes reported in 2024 in Alpena County. The crime rate per 1,000 juveniles was 15.18. Of those incidents, one was considered a serious crime. Serious crimes include aggravated assault, homicide, rape, and robbery. There were 18 cases of non-aggravated assault, which is listed as "other crimes."
There was one serious crime reported in Alcona County, and zero crimes reported in Montmorency County and Presque Isle County.
Miller is an attorney at the Northeast Michigan Regional Defender Office, which is funded by the MIDC. The office handles most of the criminal cases involving indigent defendants in Alpena, Montmorency, and Oscoda counties.
Miller said the bill will likely take a couple of years to go into effect because the MIDC is going to have to come up with standards that they are going to implement and communicate those standards to all of the counties in Michigan.
"And then give the counties time to come up with a plan for compliance, and then figure out the budgets, so I would say probably two years from now we might be getting started with it," she said.
Miller said it will likely be a similar system to what is used now in Alpena County, where the defender's office handles most indigent cases and contract attorneys handle conflicts. Conflicts can arise when a case has co-defendants, for instance, where the two parties may have different interests.
The MIDC was created in 2013 with the enactment of Public Act 93. It helped to standardize the system for indigent defendants to obtain court appointed legal counsel across all 83 Michigan counties. That has only included adult defendants until now.
Miller believes the impact of the new law on juveniles will be positive.
"It will have an impact much like the MIDC has had an impact with the adult criminal cases," she said. "By enacting standards and requiring compliance with the standards, that will increase the level of service."
She said she is sure it will have an effect on the continuing education of attorneys as well. The MIDC requires at least 12 hours every year of continuing education for those attorneys defending indigent adults.
Allowing the MIDC to fund indigent juvenile cases will also allow the attorneys that do that work to be paid more. Miller said they are currently not paid well.
She said that the majority of juvenile cases involve indigent juveniles.
"Poor people end up in the system for a variety of reasons, but in my experience because I used to do that, I would say most of the kids that come through qualify for representation," Miller said.
Having the oversight from the MIDC and the funding will increase the representation for juveniles in court.
"Historically, it's not taken as seriously, because it’s like, they refer to it as 'kid's court,' it’s not a criminal conviction so it doesn’t matter as much, but it matters," Miller said. "Juvenile adjudications matter. The impact that they have on the kids’ lives and on their futures is huge."
"So I'm excited about it," Miller said about the passage of the new law. "I think it's a long time coming."
Reagan Voetberg can be reached at 989-358-5683 or rvoetberg@thealpenanews.com.