Long before becoming a judge, some 20 years plus, Judge Thomas People\u2019s developed an interest as far as the laws involving children. First, in private practice, he represented a number of children in juvenile court. Later, as Assistant District Attorney, then elected District Attorney of Blair County, People\u2019s became involved in the prosecution of abuse, misuse, and neglect of children. Coming to the bench in 1980, Judge People says, \u201cI very quickly developed an intense interest in juvenile court and other branches of court that impact children.\u201d
\nBesides being President Judge, People\u2019s was quite modest in relaying his other current involvements involving children. He is a Board member of the Child\u2019s Advocates Organization in Blair County, which sponsors the Head Start program. People\u2019s also oversees all operations of the juvenile probation department and under his supervision has expanded drastically positively, People\u2019s stating, \u201cI am quite comfortable in saying our juvenile probation office and the department today is recognized statewide by all of their peers, in 66 other counties, as being at the forefront in development of new programs, developmental programs that work for the benefit of the child.\u201d
\nJudge People\u2019s has a significant point, \u201cPeople have to understand the philosophy of the juvenile court. In adult criminal court, the caption tells it all; it\u2019s always the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania vs \u2018John Smith, defendant.\u2019 In juvenile court, the caption of the case says, in the interest of, and then the name of the child. There is no vs. There\u2019s no combative situation…The juvenile is the child who is there to be hopefully helped by the intervention.\u201d
\nJudge People\u2019s is also very aware of situations juveniles are faced with today.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s a judge alive in this state, or probably also the United States, today who deals in juvenile court matters, who isn\u2019t concerned about the prevalence of drugs and the prevalence of alcohol,\u201d said Peoples. Alcohol prohibition for those under 21 is at least in some control. People\u2019s doesn\u2019t feel the same when it comes to drugs.
\n\u201cDrugs are unfettered,\u201d said Peoples. \u201cI am firmly of the opinion that there is a serious threat to young people in our county to become exposed to people who deal drugs. That is the threat statewide. If it weren\u2019t, we wouldn\u2019t have, for instance, statutes, that today, enlarge the penalty and make it greater for dealing within so many yards of a school.\u201d
\n\u201cThere\u2019s certainly an increase in violence-related occurences…I am including rape and assaults.
\nWhile Judge People\u2019s could offer no further comment about either the Bender case or the Stevenson case, he firmly believes to hear all sides of the cases throughly and with an unbiased opinion.
\n\u201cOur assigned duty under the law of this Commonwealth is to protect the interest of the child,\u201d the Peoples concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Long before becoming a judge, some 20 years plus, Judge Thomas People\u2019s developed an interest as far as the laws involving children. First, in private practice, he represented a number of children in juvenile court. Later, as Assistant District Attorney, then elected District Attorney of Blair County, People\u2019s became involved in the prosecution of abuse, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48093\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}