Family Court Act § 320.4 · Part 2. Initial Appearance and Probable Cause Hearing
The initial appearance; procedures
Text — Law content up to date as of August 21, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 320.4. The initial appearance; procedures. 1. At the initial appearance the court must inform the respondent, or cause him to be informed in its presence, of the charge or charges contained in the petition, and the presentment agency must cause the respondent and his or her counsel to be furnished with a copy of the petition.
2. At the initial appearance the court shall determine:
(a) whether detention is necessary pursuant to section 320.5; and
(b) whether the case should be referred to the probation service pursuant to section 320.6; and
(c) if the child is detained, the date of the probable-cause hearing pursuant to section 325.1 unless such hearing has already been held; and
(d) the date of the fact-finding hearing; and
(e) such other issues as may be properly before it.
Source of truth
- Edition
- Law content up to date as of August 21, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
- Official file
- https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/FCT320.4
- Text hash
- sha256 e05124fae429e4fd645479c9ad720a37ae3c33f0de2a31b50834d91e334c6272
- Composed by
- gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.