All states had a method for transferring the most flagrant juvenile offenders to criminal court. It was reserved mainly for murderers like Foxx and Lamore and older delinquents who'd repeatedly committed violent crimes. Most young offenders remained in the juvenile system, which tried to set them straight and then kept their convictions, called delinquency adjudications, a secret, to enhance their chances for jobs and productive futures. In exchange for juvenile court's benevolence, children are denied some of the rights that are guaranteed to adults in criminal court. For example, children can be held without bail until their trials.
States can deny children jury trials.
And juvenile sentences don't have to be specific. A judge may send a child to reform school until the school says the youth has been reformed. In the 1960s, though, lawyers for children began demanding more procedural rights in a series of appeals court challenges. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1966 that a Washington D.C. judge had improperly sent a juvenile to adult court without conducting a hearing. The court decided in what is called the Kent case that states could not deny children such due process rights just because youths were supposed to receive some sort of benefit from the juvenile court process.