Opinion ID: 107439
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: appellate review and transcript of proceedings.

Text: Appellants urge that the Arizona statute is unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause because, as construed by its Supreme Court, there is no right of appeal from a juvenile court order . . . . The court held that there is no right to a transcript because there is no right to appeal and because the proceedings are confidential and any record must be destroyed after a prescribed period of time. [100] Whether a transcript or other recording is made, it held, is a matter for the discretion of the juvenile court. This Court has not held that a State is required by the Federal Constitution to provide appellate courts or a right to appellate review at all. [101] In view of the fact that we must reverse the Supreme Court of Arizona's affirmance of the dismissal of the writ of habeas corpus for other reasons, we need not rule on this question in the present case or upon the failure to provide a transcript or recording of the hearingsor, indeed, the failure of the Juvenile Judge to state the grounds for his conclusion. Cf. Kent v. United States, supra, at 561, where we said, in the context of a decision of the juvenile court waiving jurisdiction to the adult court, which by local law, was permissible: . . . it is incumbent upon the Juvenile Court to accompany its waiver order with a statement of the reasons or considerations therefor. As the present case illustrates, the consequences of failure to provide an appeal, to record the proceedings, or to make findings or state the grounds for the juvenile court's conclusion may be to throw a burden upon the machinery for habeas corpus, to saddle the reviewing process with the burden of attempting to reconstruct a record, and to impose upon the Juvenile Judge the unseemly duty of testifying under cross-examination as to the events that transpired in the hearings before him. [102] For the reasons stated, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Arizona is reversed and the cause remanded for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. It is so ordered.