Legal Question in Criminal Law in Michigan

Under the crime victim's rights act, when restitution is ordered for the wrongdoers to pay the victims for the costs of damage from the incident, the parent who had supervisory responsibility of the youth at the time of the incident may be (not 'shall be') ordered to co-pay all, part or none of the child's restitution debt when the child can't immediately pay it himself. So, when you say that your sons "were in the custody of their dad" when the incidents happened, YOU should not have been ordered to cover any of the restitution ... the dad could have been (based on his ability to pay), because he was in a position to have more effectively supervised them when the damage occurred. If this was the dad's visitation weekend and you "had the weekend off" then you could not have controlled the kids. Only he could have. But, that only applies to the restitution ordered by the court. Regardless of the custody situation, the juvenile court orders both parents to reimburse the court for other fees ordered and the costs of services to rehabilitate the minors. This includes a state mandatory fee, a crime victim assessment, the cost of a court-appointed attorney, the costs of housing the minors in detention or a residential program, etc. All those are supposed to be assessed against both parents, usually 50/50.