Court Opinion

ID: 9456899
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:05:13.834418+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:08.139704
License: Public Domain

*843TAMM, Circuit Judge
(concurring in the result):
Although I find nothing either in Cooley v. Stone, 134 U.S.App.D.C. 317, 414 F.2d 1213 (1969), or in the Gault line of cases that deals with non-detained juveniles, I perceive substantial merit in some administrative program which, if only in the interest of prompt disposition, will assure the scheduling of probable cause hearings of non-detained juveniles within a reasonable time after seizure. Recent press dispatches recording the dismissal of some 60 percent of the total number of pending charges in the then Juvenile Court underline the pathetic need for the introduction of procedures designed to introduce a systematic, prompt and legal disposition of the charges against all juveniles.
I quite agree that the Fourth Amendment is for the protection of juveniles as well as adults. It thus logically follows, as the majority indicates, that juveniles “are entitled to an appropriate remedy” to show a faulty arrest. Though it might well be appropriate, when the juvenile is not detained, to hold these probable cause determinations some time prior to the fact-finding hearing, I think it might be wise for the new Superior Court, when it becomes settled and more experienced with its administrative and procedural problems,» to study the feasibility of providing prompt probable cause hearings for all non-detained juveniles who request it.1 If these probable cause hearings can be expeditiously granted to non-detained juveniles in the future, much of the uncertainty in these individuals’ minds as to the status of complaints against them will disappear and in its place may well march a sorely needed enhancement of both judicial public relations and juvenile appreciation of the fairness of court procedures.

. The statute creating the Superior Court of course now requires a prompt probable cause hearing for detained juveniles. District of Columbia Court Reform and Criminal Procedures Act of 1970. Pub.L. No. 91-358, 84 Stat. 531, July 29, 1970. Thus, while I am unable to conclude that there are constitutional, statutory, case law, or procedural rules requiring prompt probable cause hearings for non-detained juveniles, I believe sound judicial administration dictates the obvious desirability of such hearings.