Terms Used In Ohio Code > Chapter 2151 - Juvenile Court

• abused child: includes any child who:

  (A) Is the victim of "sexual activity" as defined under Chapter 2907 of the Revised Code, where such activity would constitute an offense under that chapter, except that the court need not find that any person has been convicted of the offense in order to find that the child is an abused child;

  (B) Is endangered as defined in section 2919. See Ohio Code 2151.031

• Adequate parental care: means the provision by a child's parent or parents, guardian, or custodian of adequate food, clothing, and shelter to ensure the child's health and physical safety and the provision by a child's parent or parents of specialized services warranted by the child's physical or mental needs. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Adjourn: A motion to adjourn a legislative chamber or a committee, if passed, ends that day's session.
• Adult: means an individual who is eighteen years of age or older. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Affidavit: A written statement of facts confirmed by the oath of the party making it, before a notary or officer having authority to administer oaths.
• Agreement for temporary custody: means a voluntary agreement authorized by section 5103. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Allegation: something that someone says happened.
• Alternative response: means the public children services agency's response to a report of child abuse or neglect that engages the family in a comprehensive evaluation of child safety, risk of subsequent harm, and family strengths and needs and that does not include a determination as to whether child abuse or neglect occurred. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Another: when used to designate the owner of property which is the subject of an offense, includes not only natural persons but also every other owner of property. See Ohio Code 1.02
• Answer: The formal written statement by a defendant responding to a civil complaint and setting forth the grounds for defense.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appellate: About appeals; an appellate court has the power to review the judgement of another lower court or tribunal.
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Appropriation: The provision of funds, through an annual appropriations act or a permanent law, for federal agencies to make payments out of the Treasury for specified purposes. The formal federal spending process consists of two sequential steps: authorization
• Arrest: Taking physical custody of a person by lawful authority.
• Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
• Bond: includes an undertaking. See Ohio Code 1.02
• Certified foster home: means a foster home, as defined in section 5103. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Child: means a person who is under eighteen years of age, except that the juvenile court has jurisdiction over any person who is adjudicated an unruly child prior to attaining eighteen years of age until the person attains twenty-one years of age, and, for purposes of that jurisdiction related to that adjudication, a person who is so adjudicated an unruly child shall be deemed a "child" until the person attains twenty-one years of age. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Commit: means to vest custody as ordered by the court. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Common law: The legal system that originated in England and is now in use in the United States. It is based on judicial decisions rather than legislative action.
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Continuance: Putting off of a hearing ot trial until a later time.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Counseling: includes both of the following:

  (a) General counseling services performed by a public children services agency or shelter for victims of domestic violence to assist a child, a child's parents, and a child's siblings in alleviating identified problems that may cause or have caused the child to be an abused, neglected, or dependent child. See Ohio Code 2151.011

• Custodian: means a person who has legal custody of a child or a public children services agency or private child placing agency that has permanent, temporary, or legal custody of a child. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Defendant: In a civil suit, the person complained against; in a criminal case, the person accused of the crime.
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• dependent child: means any child:

  (A) Who is homeless or destitute or without adequate parental care, through no fault of the child's parents, guardian, or custodian;

  (B) Who lacks adequate parental care by reason of the mental or physical condition of the child's parents, guardian, or custodian;

  (C) Whose condition or environment is such as to warrant the state, in the interests of the child, in assuming the child's guardianship;

  (D) To whom both of the following apply:

  (1) The child is residing in a household in which a parent, guardian, custodian, or other member of the household committed an act that was the basis for an adjudication that a sibling of the child or any other child who resides in the household is an abused, neglected, or dependent child. See Ohio Code 2151.04

• Deposition: An oral statement made before an officer authorized by law to administer oaths. Such statements are often taken to examine potential witnesses, to obtain discovery, or to be used later in trial.
• Detention: means the temporary care of children pending court adjudication or disposition, or execution of a court order, in a public or private facility designed to physically restrict the movement and activities of children. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Differential response approach: means an approach that a public children services agency may use to respond to accepted reports of child abuse or neglect with either an alternative response or a traditional response. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• Dismissal: The dropping of a case by the judge without further consideration or hearing. ^Source:
• Docket: A log containing brief entries of court proceedings.
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Ex officio: Literally, by virtue of one's office.
• Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
• Fixed Rate: Having a "fixed" rate means that the APR doesn't change based on fluctuations of some external rate (such as the "Prime Rate"). In other words, a fixed rate is a rate that is not a variable rate. A fixed APR can change over time, in several circumstances:
  • You are late making a payment or commit some other default, triggering an increase to a penalty rate
  • The bank changes the terms of your account and you do not reject the change.
  • The rate expires (if the rate was fixed for only a certain period of time).
• Grand jury: agreement providing that a lender will delay exercising its rights (in the case of a mortgage,
• Guardian: means a person, association, or corporation that is granted authority by a probate court pursuant to Chapter 2111 of the Revised Code to exercise parental rights over a child to the extent provided in the court's order and subject to the residual parental rights of the child's parents. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
• Habeas corpus: A writ that is usually used to bring a prisoner before the court to determine the legality of his imprisonment. It may also be used to bring a person in custody before the court to give testimony, or to be prosecuted.
• Habitual truant: means any child of compulsory school age who is absent without legitimate excuse for absence from the public school the child is supposed to attend for thirty or more consecutive hours, forty-two or more hours in one school month, or seventy-two or more hours in a school year. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Hearsay: Statements by a witness who did not see or hear the incident in question but heard about it from someone else. Hearsay is usually not admissible as evidence in court.
• imprisonment: means being imprisoned under a sentence imposed for an offense or serving a term of imprisonment, prison term, jail term, term of local incarceration, or other term under a sentence imposed for an offense in an institution under the control of the department of rehabilitation and correction, a county, multicounty, municipal, municipal-county, or multicounty-municipal jail or workhouse, a minimum security jail, a community-based correctional facility, or another facility described or referred to in section 2929. See Ohio Code 1.05
• in writing: includes any representation of words, letters, symbols, or figures; this provision does not affect any law relating to signatures. See Ohio Code 1.59
• Indictment: The formal charge issued by a grand jury stating that there is enough evidence that the defendant committed the crime to justify having a trial; it is used primarily for felonies.
• Internet: means the international computer network of both federal and nonfederal interoperable packet switched data networks, including the graphical subnetwork known as the world wide web. See Ohio Code 1.59
• Joint meeting: An occasion, often ceremonial, when the House and Senate each adopt a unanimous consent agreement
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Juvenile court: means whichever of the following is applicable that has jurisdiction under this chapter and Chapter 2152 of the Revised Code:

  (a) The division of the court of common pleas specified in section 2101. See Ohio Code 2151.011

• Juvenile judge: means a judge of a court having jurisdiction under this chapter. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Legal custody: means a legal status that vests in the custodian the right to have physical care and control of the child and to determine where and with whom the child shall live, and the right and duty to protect, train, and discipline the child and to provide the child with food, shelter, education, and medical care, all subject to any residual parental rights, privileges, and responsibilities. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• legitimate excuse for absence from the public school the child is supposed to attend: includes , but is not limited to, any of the following:

  (a) The fact that the child in question has enrolled in and is attending another public or nonpublic school in this or another state;

  (b) The fact that the child in question is excused from attendance at school for any of the reasons specified in section 3321. See Ohio Code 2151.011

• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Litigation: A case, controversy, or lawsuit. Participants (plaintiffs and defendants) in lawsuits are called litigants.
• Mental injury: means any behavioral, cognitive, emotional, or mental disorder in a child caused by an act or omission that is described in section 2919. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• neglected child: includes any child:

  (1) Who is abandoned by the child's parents, guardian, or custodian;

  (2) Who lacks adequate parental care because of the faults or habits of the child's parents, guardian, or custodian;

  (3) Whose parents, guardian, or custodian neglects the child or refuses to provide proper or necessary subsistence, education, medical or surgical care or treatment, or other care necessary for the child's health, morals, or well being;

  (4) Whose parents, guardian, or custodian neglects the child or refuses to provide the special care made necessary by the child's mental condition;

  (5) Whose parents, legal guardian, or custodian have placed or attempted to place the child in violation of sections 5103. See Ohio Code 2151.03

• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Organization: means any institution, public, semipublic, or private, and any private association, society, or agency located or operating in the state, incorporated or unincorporated, having among its functions the furnishing of protective services or care for children, or the placement of children in certified foster homes or elsewhere. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Out-of-home care: means detention facilities, shelter facilities, certified children's crisis care facilities, certified foster homes, placement in a prospective adoptive home prior to the issuance of a final decree of adoption, organizations, certified organizations, child day-care centers, type A family day-care homes, type B family day-care homes, child care provided by in-home aides, group home providers, group homes, institutions, state institutions, residential facilities, residential care facilities, residential camps, day camps, private, nonprofit therapeutic wilderness camps, public schools, chartered nonpublic schools, educational service centers, hospitals, and medical clinics that are responsible for the care, physical custody, or control of children. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Oversight: Committee review of the activities of a Federal agency or program.
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Permanent custody: means a legal status that vests in a public children services agency or a private child placing agency, all parental rights, duties, and obligations, including the right to consent to adoption, and divests the natural parents or adoptive parents of all parental rights, privileges, and obligations, including all residual rights and obligations. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Person: means an individual, association, corporation, or partnership and the state or any of its political subdivisions, departments, or agencies. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Physical impairment: means having one or more of the following conditions that substantially limit one or more of an individual's major life activities, including self-care, receptive and expressive language, learning, mobility, and self-direction:

  (a) A substantial impairment of vision, speech, or hearing;

  (b) A congenital orthopedic impairment;

  (c) An orthopedic impairment caused by disease, rheumatic fever or any other similar chronic or acute health problem, or amputation or another similar cause. See Ohio Code 2151.011

• Physician assistant: means an individual who is licensed under Chapter 4730 of the Revised Code to provide services as a physician assistant to patients under the supervision, control, and direction of one or more physicians. See Ohio Code 1.64
• Placement for adoption: means the arrangement by a public children services agency or a private child placing agency with a person for the care and adoption by that person of a child of whom the agency has permanent custody. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Placement in foster care: means the arrangement by a public children services agency or a private child placing agency for the out-of-home care of a child of whom the agency has temporary custody or permanent custody. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Planned permanent living arrangement: means an order of a juvenile court pursuant to which both of the following apply:

  (a) The court gives legal custody of a child to a public children services agency or a private child placing agency without the termination of parental rights. See Ohio Code 2151.011

• Plea: In a criminal case, the defendant's statement pleading "guilty" or "not guilty" in answer to the charges, a declaration made in open court.
• Population: means that shown by the most recent regular federal census. See Ohio Code 1.59
• Private child placing agency: means any association, as defined in section 5103. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Private noncustodial agency: means any person, organization, association, or society certified by the department of job and family services that does not accept temporary or permanent legal custody of children, that is privately operated in this state, and that does one or more of the following:

  (a) Receives and cares for children for two or more consecutive weeks;

  (b) Participates in the placement of children in certified foster homes;

  (c) Provides adoption services in conjunction with a public children services agency or private child placing agency. See Ohio Code 2151.011

• Probable cause: A reasonable ground for belief that the offender violated a specific law.
• Probate: Proving a will
• Probation: A sentencing alternative to imprisonment in which the court releases convicted defendants under supervision as long as certain conditions are observed.
• Probation officers: Screen applicants for pretrial release and monitor convicted offenders released under court supervision.
• Property: means real and personal property. See Ohio Code 1.59
• Prosecute: To charge someone with a crime. A prosecutor tries a criminal case on behalf of the government.
• Protective supervision: means an order of disposition pursuant to which the court permits an abused, neglected, dependent, or unruly child to remain in the custody of the child's parents, guardian, or custodian and stay in the child's home, subject to any conditions and limitations upon the child, the child's parents, guardian, or custodian, or any other person that the court prescribes, including supervision as directed by the court for the protection of the child. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Public defender: Represent defendants who can't afford an attorney in criminal matters.
• Public law: A public bill or joint resolution that has passed both chambers and been enacted into law. Public laws have general applicability nationwide.
• Quorum: The number of legislators that must be present to do business.
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Remainder: An interest in property that takes effect in the future at a specified time or after the occurrence of some event, such as the death of a life tenant.
• Residential camp: means a program in which the care, physical custody, or control of children is accepted overnight for recreational or recreational and educational purposes. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Residential care facility: means an institution, residence, or facility that is licensed by the department of mental health and addiction services under section 5119. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Residential facility: means a home or facility that is licensed by the department of developmental disabilities under section 5123. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Rule: includes regulation. See Ohio Code 1.59
• School day: means the school day established by the board of education of the applicable school district pursuant to section 3313. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Secure correctional facility: means a facility under the direction of the department of youth services that is designed to physically restrict the movement and activities of children and used for the placement of children after adjudication and disposition. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Service of process: The service of writs or summonses to the appropriate party.
• Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
• Shelter: means the temporary care of children in physically unrestricted facilities pending court adjudication or disposition. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• state: means the state of Ohio. See Ohio Code 1.59
• Statute: A law passed by a legislature.
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• Temporary custody: means legal custody of a child who is removed from the child's home, which custody may be terminated at any time at the discretion of the court or, if the legal custody is granted in an agreement for temporary custody, by the person who executed the agreement. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Testify: Answer questions in court.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Traditional response: means a public children services agency's response to a report of child abuse or neglect that encourages engagement of the family in a comprehensive evaluation of the child's current and future safety needs and a fact-finding process to determine whether child abuse or neglect occurred and the circumstances surrounding the alleged harm or risk of harm. See Ohio Code 2151.011
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• United States: includes all the states. See Ohio Code 1.59
• unruly child: includes any of the following:

  (A) Any child who does not submit to the reasonable control of the child's parents, teachers, guardian, or custodian, by reason of being wayward or habitually disobedient;

  (B) Any child who is an habitual truant from school;

  (C) Any child who behaves in a manner as to injure or endanger the child's own health or morals or the health or morals of others;

  (D) Any child who violates a law, other than division (C) of section 2907. See Ohio Code 2151.022

• Verdict: The decision of a petit jury or a judge.
• Victim advocate: work with prosecutors and assist the victims of a crime.
• Whoever: includes all persons, natural and artificial; partners; principals, agents, and employees; and all officials, public or private. See Ohio Code 1.02
• Writ: A formal written command, issued from the court, requiring the performance of a specific act.