May the truancy court prepare a petition for the prosecutor to sign? This would be done in the interest of lightening the load of the prosecutor.
This is not what the statute envisions. The statute envisions that prosecutors prepare the petitions. Judges who do this are certainly well-intentioned and their efforts may serve to get the cases processed more quickly. But preparing the petition goes beyond the role of the court and gets into prosecutor territory. It seems that preparing the petition is akin to preparing a charging instrument which is the prosecutor’s job. While not outright prohibited, it is not encouraged. (Ted Wood, Office of Court Administration)