Juvenile Justice: Rights During the Adjudicatory Process
Released: 2007-04-16T00:00:00

As attention continues to focus on juvenile offenders, some question the way in which they are treated in the U.S. criminal justice system. Since the late 1960s, the juvenile justice system has undergone significant modifications as a result of United States Supreme Court decisions, changes in federal and state law and the growing perception that juveniles were increasingly involved in more serious and violent crimes. As a result, federal and state juvenile justice systems have focused less on rehabilitation and more on punishment, which may have significant ramifications for juvenile offenders once they reach adulthood. For example, recidivist statutes such as the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA) impose mandatory minimums based on prior convictions, including juvenile adjudications. As such, adult criminal defendants are exposed to longer terms of imprisonment based on prior juvenile misconduct. Despite this shift in focus to one more closely resembling the adult criminal justice system, juvenile offenders are not generally afforded the full panoply of rights provided to adult criminal defendants.

Background: The Juvenile Justice System

The establishment of a juvenile court in Cook County, Illinois, in 1899 marked the first statewide implementation of a separate judicial framework whose sole concern was the problems and misconduct of children. The juvenile court was designed to be more than a court for children. The underlying theory behind a separate juvenile court system was that the state has a duty to assume a custodial and protective role over individuals who cannot act in their own best interest. As such, the separate system for juvenile offenders was predicated on the notion of rehabilitation—not punishment, retribution, or incapacitation. Because the juvenile court focused on protection rather than punishment, the juvenile proceeding was conceptualized as a civil proceeding (not a criminal one), with none of the trappings of an adversarial proceeding.

By the mid-20 th century, questions arose regarding the fairness and efficacy of the juvenile justice system and its ability to effectively rehabilitate young offenders. Concerns that the differences between the adult and juvenile systems were illusory prompted the need to preserve the legal rights of children adjudicated in the juvenile justice system. As such, state courts began to expand the legal rights of juvenile offenders. The emerging focus on juveniles' rights in the state courts prompted intervention from the U.S. Supreme Court, which had traditionally deferred to the states.

Procedural Due Process Rights

Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Court examined the due process rights of minors in four landmark cases: Kent v. United States , In re Gault , In re Winship , and McKeiver v. Pennsylvania . Through these cases, the Court left an indelible mark on the juvenile justice system by restricting the discretion of juvenile court judges and enumerating the constitutional rights retained by juveniles during adjudication. These decisions resulted in a hybrid juvenile justice system that renders some of the procedural rights afforded to adult criminal defendants. Some argue that this hybrid system blurs the historical distinction between the juvenile justice and adult criminal systems.

Kent v. United States

The Court first recognized that the U.S. Constitution guaranteed juveniles due process rights in Kent v. United States . In Kent , the Court reviewed a District of Columbia case in which the petitioner challenged the validity of the juvenile court's decision to waive jurisdiction over him, on the ground that the procedure used by the court in reaching its decision constituted a denial of due process of law. The U.S. Supreme Court held that the waiver of jurisdiction was a "critically important" stage in the juvenile process and must be attended by minimum requirements of due process and fair treatment required by the Fourteenth Amendment. In reaching its decision, the Court expressed concern that the non-criminal nature of the juvenile proceeding was an invitation to "procedural arbitrariness" including broad judicial fact-finding.

In re Gault

In In re Gault , the Court held that the informal procedures of juvenile courts amount to a denial of juveniles' fundamental due process rights. Although the Court recognized that juvenile courts were attempting to help juveniles, it reasoned that this worthy purpose failed to justify informal procedure, particularly when a juvenile's liberty was threatened. After a thorough examination of the history of the juvenile court system, the Court reiterated much of the criticism it raised in Kent , specifically expressing concern about the juvenile court's informality and the broad discretion of its judges. To ensure that juveniles receive the essentials of fair treatment during an adjudicatory hearing, the Court found that juveniles were entitled to certain due process rights afforded to adult criminal defendants under the U.S. Constitution. These rights include the right to reasonable notice of the charges, the right to counsel, the right to confrontation, and the right against self-incrimination.

In re Winship

In In re Winship , the Court continued to expand the rights of juveniles by holding that the state must show proof beyond a reasonable doubt to adjudicate a minor as delinquent for an act that would be a crime if committed by an adult. The state of New York charged Samuel Winship with delinquency for stealing $112 from a woman's pocketbook in a furniture store. Having already established that juvenile proceedings must conform to due process and fair treatment, the Court considered a single issue: whether due process and fair treatment require a state to demonstrate proof beyond a reasonable doubt to hold a juvenile accountable for committing an adult criminal act.

Although a New York juvenile court found Winship to be delinquent under a statute that required the state to show guilt merely by a preponderance of the evidence, the Court reversed, emphasizing that criminal charges have always required a higher burden of persuasion than civil cases. The Court expressly held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he or she is charged. Finding that juveniles are constitutionally entitled to the reasonable doubt standard, the Court stated, "[t]he same considerations that demand extreme caution in fact-finding to protect the innocent adult apply as well to the innocent child." The Court rejected the state's argument that the delinquency adjudication is a civil proceeding that did not require due process protections, calling this argument the "civil label of convenience."

McKeiver v. Pennsylvania

By 1970, the Supreme Court had ruled that the due process notion of fundamental fairness entitled juveniles to various procedural protections in juvenile court. However, in McKeiver v. Pennsylvania , the Court held that juveniles do not have a fundamental right to a jury trial when being adjudicated in the juvenile justice system. McKeive r was a consolidation of three similar appeals involving minors adjudicated delinquent in juvenile court by judges who had rejected their requests for a jury to serve as fact-finder at their hearing. The Court narrowed the issue presented to whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment ensured the right to trial by jury in the adjudicative phase of a juvenile court delinquency proceeding. After reviewing its previous juvenile court jurisprudence, the Court first considered whether the right to a jury was automatically guaranteed to minors by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. Although it had never expressly characterized juvenile court proceedings as criminal prosecutions within the meaning and reach of the Sixth Amendment, the Court reiterated that the juvenile court system reflected many of the adult criminal court's punitive aspects.

However, a plurality of the Court rejected the argument that adjudicatory proceedings were substantively similar to criminal trials, reasoning that a jury trial was only constitutionally required if due process required fact-finding by a jury. In support of its conclusion that a jury is unnecessary for fair fact-finding, the plurality noted that equity cases, workmen's compensation cases, probate matters, deportation cases, and military trials, among others, had been traditionally decided by judges without juries. In reaching its decision, the Court expressed doubt as to whether imposing such a right would improve the fact-finding ability of juvenile courts. In addition, the Court reasoned that imposing such a right would jeopardize the unique nature of the juvenile system and blur the distinctions between juvenile court and adult criminal court. To do so would make the juvenile system obsolete. The plurality's holding signaled the Court's return to the more paternalistic approach it had rejected in its previous opinions and marked the end of the era of expansion of procedural rights in juvenile adjudications.

Right to Jury Trial Revisited

Arguably, the absence of a jury trial requirement in adjudicatory proceedings presents a host of questions that may warrant a reexamination of the issue. First, some are likely to argue that the increasingly punitive nature of cases adjudicated in the juvenile justice system calls into question the validity of the Court's reasoning underlying its holding in McKeiver that juveniles are not entitled to the right to a jury trial. When the Court decided McKeiver , it did so to maintain the civil and rehabilitative nature of the juvenile justice system. At the time of the decision, juvenile adjudication hearings were closed to the public, the system was informal, and the records of the juvenile adjudications were confidential and not relied on in criminal prosecutions. Currently, some juvenile adjudication hearings are open to the public, the system is more formal and adversarial, and juvenile adjudications are frequently used in criminal prosecutions for sentence enhancement. From their perspective, the civil and rehabilitative nature of the juvenile justice system has shifted to a more punitive one which more closely resembles the adult criminal justice system.

Central to the McKeiver ' s holding was the Court's conclusion that juries were not essential to accurate fact-finding. However, this premise may be called into question in light of the Court's reemphasis on the importance of a jury. In a series of cases, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized and emphasized the important role that juries play in criminal proceedings. In Duncan v. Louisiana , the U.S. Supreme Court held that the right to jury trial is fundamental and guaranteed by due process. In Williams v. Florida , the Court reaffirmed that the "purpose of the jury trial ... is to prevent oppression by the Government." The U.S. Supreme Court recognized the superiority of group decision-making over individual judgments in Ballew v. Georgia , which defined the constitutional minimum number of jurors that a state must empanel in a criminal prosecution. In Ballew , the Court, relying on empirical data, found that a jury composed of less than six members was less likely to foster effective group deliberation and more likely to lead to inaccurate fact-finding and incorrect application of the community's common sense to the facts. In addition, the court concluded that a smaller panel could increase the risk of convicting an innocent person. More recently, the Court has stressed the constitutional necessity of juries, rather than judges, making factual determinations upon which sentences are based. The Court's reasoning in Ballew and subsequent cases regarding fact-finding by juries during sentencing may call into question the Court's conclusion in McKeiver that a jury would not improve the fact-finding ability and fairness of juvenile courts.

An argument can also be made that the absence of a jury trial in the adjudicatory process could lead to inequities in other criminal proceedings. For example, recidivist statutes such as the Armed Career Criminal Act impose mandatory minimums based on prior convictions, which by definition include juvenile adjudications. As such, adult criminal defendants are subjected to longer terms of imprisonment based on prior juvenile misconduct. Some state and lower federal courts have found that equating juvenile adjudications with a conviction as a predicate offense for the purposes of state recidivism statutes subverts the civil nature of the juvenile adjudication to an extent that makes it fundamentally unfair and, thus, violative of due process. One way to remedy the perceived inequities in using non-jury juvenile adjudication as sentence enhancements, critics of the current system maintain, might be to grant juveniles a right to a jury trial during adjudicatory hearings.