Court Opinion

ID: 9767246
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:13:55.582873+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:29.737452
License: Public Domain

SEPARATE CONCURRING OPINION
MILLIKEN, Judge.
I agree with the reversal of the judgment and with most of the reasoning of the majority opinion, but I would go a bit further — I would grant a jury trial in the circuit court.
Conceding that the legal issue is delinquency and not the commission of a crime, nevertheless, the commission of a crime is the basis of the finding of delinquency in this case. I do not believe that Gault necessarily will transmute the usually informal juvenile court proceeding into a truly adversary proceeding, but rather that Gault cloaks the juvenile court proceeding with certain constitutional safeguards ac*462corded by our system whenever the freedom of the individual is threatened — the right to counsel and freedom from self-incrimination. These constitutional safeguards can apply to informal juvenile court inquiries without converting them into truly adversary proceedings; they tend to assure that a child can not be transferred to institutional custody except on competent evidence and do not, as I see it, seriously impede the juvenile courts in their solicitous efforts to protect a troubled child.
But where a charge of criminal conduct is involved, I see no good reason to deny a jury hearing on that issue if one is requested, as it is here. I do not mean to imply that a jury trial must be had whenever commission of a crime is the basis of a charge of delinquency, but only that a jury trial should be afforded when requested in the child's appeal to the circuit court. In my judgment that would complete the cycle of constitutional protection of the child, and still permit our juvenile courts to perform their vital functions pretty much as they have except that counsel be required for the child to assure it the constitutional protection commanded by Gault.