Evidence
§ 624. Evidence. Only competent, material and relevant evidence may be admitted in a fact-finding hearing; only material and relevant evidence may be admitted in a dispositional hearing. Evidence of parental contact or of failure to maintain contact with a child subsequent to the date of the filing of a petition under this part shall be inadmissible in the fact-finding hearing. Such evidence may be admitted in the dispositional hearing but shall not, of itself, be sufficient as a matter of law to preclude or require an order committing the guardianship and custody of the child.
Fact-finding: only competent, material, and relevant evidence. Disposition: only material and relevant evidence (competency bar relaxed). ★ Evidence of parental contact after the petition was filed is inadmissible at fact-finding, may come in at disposition, but by itself can't force or block a commitment order.
Marked in the text: penalties, time limits, sums of money. Editorial emphasis added by this edition; it does not appear in the statute as enacted.
This provision appears in Volume 5 — The JG-22 Family Court Act and in Volume 1 — The JG-22 in Plain English.