Juvenile court in New Hampshire: under 18, the transfer hearing, and records closed at 21

New Hampshire's juvenile delinquency law covers acts committed before age 18. There is also a floor: no one under 13 can be brought into a delinquency case unless the charge is one of a short list of violent crimes, such as murder or first-degree assault.

The U.S. Supreme Court decided in In re Gault (1967) that a young person facing a delinquency case has real due process rights, including notice of the charges, a lawyer, and the right not to be forced to testify against themselves. Those rights apply in New Hampshire as everywhere else.

Only a felony (a serious crime) can be transferred to the superior court, where adults are tried. The juvenile court must first hold a transfer hearing. It weighs how serious and violent the offense was, the young person's maturity and prior record, and whether the juvenile system can realistically help them.

You have the right to a lawyer at that hearing. If the judge orders a transfer, the judge must give you written reasons.

For a few very serious charges, like murder or first-degree assault, committed after a 15th birthday, the law starts from a presumption (a starting assumption the defense can argue against) that transfer is appropriate. The same presumption applies to a felony charge after 4 or more earlier delinquency findings.

New Hampshire keeps juvenile case records confidential. Court records are stored apart from adult files and withheld from public inspection. A parent, your lawyer, and the people working on your treatment can see them. Police and prosecutors can still use juvenile police files when they investigate or prosecute later crimes.

Once a person reaches 21, the court, institutional, and police records are closed and placed in an inactive file. We could not confirm the full details of a separate annulment process (a way to erase a record) for juvenile cases, so ask a lawyer about your own record.