Juvenile court

“ The facts and the contentions of counsel raise a number of disturbing questions concerning the administration by the police and the Juvenile Court authorities of the District of Columbia laws relating to juveniles. Apart from raising questions as to the adequacy of custodial and treatment facilities and policies, some of which are not within judicial competence, the case presents important challenges to the procedure of the police and Juvenile Court officials upon apprehension of a juvenile suspected of serious offenses. ”

“ I should have supposed that the constitutionality of juvenile courts was beyond proper question under the standards now employed to assess the substantive validity of state legislation under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It can scarcely be doubted that it is within the State's competence to adopt measures reasonably calculated to meet more effectively the persistent problems of juvenile delinquency; as the opinion for the Court makes abundantly plain, these are among the most vexing and ominous of the concerns which now face communities throughout the country. ”

“ The imposition of the jury trial on the juvenile court system would not strengthen greatly, if at all, the fact-finding function, and would, contrarily, provide an attrition of the juvenile court's assumed ability to function in a unique manner. ”

“ The juvenile court is a court of law, charged like other agencies of criminal justice with protecting the community against threatening conduct. Rehabilitating offenders through individualized handling is one way of providing protection, and appropriately the primary way in dealing with children. But the guiding consideration for a court of law that deals with threatening conduct is nonetheless protection of the community. The juvenile court, like other courts, is therefore obliged to employ all the means at hand, not excluding incapacitation, for achieving that protection. ”

“ What the juvenile court system needs is not more but less of the trappings of legal procedure and judicial formalism; the juvenile court system requires breathing room and flexibility in order to survive, if it can survive the repeated assaults from this Court. ”

“ It is difficult to see how the distinctive objectives of the juvenile court give rise to a legitimate institutional interest in finding a juvenile to have committed a violation of the criminal law on less evidence than if he were an adult.'
5 The more comprehensive and effective the procedures used to prevent public disclosure of the finding, the less the danger of stigma. As we indicated in Gault, however, often the 'claim of secrecy * * * is more rhetoric than reality.' 387 U.S., at 24, 87 S.Ct., at 1442. ”

“ What is required is rather a revised philosophy of the juvenile court based on the recognition that in the past our reach exceeded our grasp. The spirit that animated the juvenile court movement was fed in part by a humanitarian compassion for offenders who were children. That willingness to understand and treat people who threaten public safety and security should be nurtured, not turned aside as hopeless sentimentality, both because it is civilized and because social protection itself demands constant search for alternatives to the crude and limited expedient of condemnation and punishment. ”

“ The problem is to ascertain the precise impact of the due process requirement upon such proceedings.
From the inception of the juvenile court system, wide differences have been tolerated-indeed insisted upon-between the procedural rights accorded to adults and those of juveniles. In practically all jurisdictions, there are rights granted to adults which are withheld from juveniles. ”

“ Unless appropriate due process of law is followed, even the juvenile who has violated the law may not feel that he is being fairly treated, and may therefore resist the rehabilitative efforts of court personnel. [36] Of course it is not suggested that juvenile court judges should fail appropriately to take account, in their demeanor and conduct, of the emotional and psychological attitude of the juveniles with whom they [p27] are confronted. ”

“ The children’s courts in New York State should also have the power to appoint legal guardians for children in case of need.
To be a judge of a juvenile court requires exceptional qualifications: quick sympathy, and intelligent understanding of the many causes which contribute to child delinquency.
A large part of the problem comes back to the environment of the child, to crowded living conditions, deficient education, lack of vocational training, and absence of opportunities for recreation. ”

“ But where a State uses its juvenile court proceedings to prosecute a juvenile for a criminal act and to order 'confinement' until the child reaches 21 years of age or where the child at the threshold of the proceedings faces that prospect, then he is entitled to the same procedural protection as an adult. ”

“ It is easy to imagine a judge deciding that a minor deserves a (much) harsher sentence than he would receive in juvenile court, while still not thinking life-without-parole appropriate. For that reason, the discretion available to a judge at the transfer stage cannot substitute for discretion at post-trial sentencing in adult court—and so cannot satisfy the Eighth Amendment.
IV Graham, Roper, and our individualized sentencing decisions make clear that a judge or jury must have the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances before imposing the harshest possible penalty for juveniles. ”

“ Second and still more important, the question at transfer hearings may differ dramatically from the issue at a post-trial sentencing. Because many juvenile systems require that the offender be released at a particular age or after a certain number of years, transfer decisions often present a choice between extremes: light punishment as a child or standard sentencing as an adult (here, life without parole) . In many States, for example, a child convicted in juvenile court must be released from custody by the age of 21. ”

“ Many States have chosen to move away from juvenile court systems and to allow juveniles to be transferred to, or charged directly in, adult court under certain circumstances. Once in adult court, a juvenile offender may receive the same sentence as would be given to an adult offender, including a life without parole [p67] sentence. But the fact that transfer and direct charging laws make life without parole possible for some juvenile nonhomicide offenders does not justify a judgment that many States intended to subject such offenders to life without parole sentences. ”

“ While due process requirements will, in some instances, introduce a degree of order and regularity to Juvenile Court proceedings to determine delinquency, and in contested cases will introduce some elements of the adversary system, nothing will require that the conception of the kindly juvenile judge be replaced by its opposite, nor do we here rule upon the question whether ordinary due process requirements must be observed with respect to hearings to determine the disposition of the delinquent child. ”

“ The proper operation of adult probation will, in my judgment, abolish to a considerable extent the necessity for the Juvenile Court, which has become a new and efficient though expensive institution in a number of States. ”

“ Whether a jury trial is in conflict with the juvenile court's underlying philosophy is irrelevant, for the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the land.
Given the fundamental nature of the right to jury trial as expressed in Duncan and Bloom, there is, as I see it, no constitutionally sufficient reason to deprive the juvenile of this right. The balancing of the rehabilitative purpose of the juvenile proceeding with the due process requirement of a jury trial is a matter for a future Constitutional Convention. ”

“ When the waiver comes up for hearing, the Court could, at its discretion, either grant or refuse the juvenile's waiver of a jury trial, and/or appoint a guardian or legal counsel to advise the child.
My experience has shown that the greatest percentage of juveniles who appear before the court in felony cases have lived appalling lives due to parental neglect and brutality, lack of normal living conditions, and poverty. This has produced in them a maturity which is normally acquired much later in life. They are generally well aware of their rights in a court of law. ”

“ The Court today uses an obscure Arizona case as a vehicle to impose upon thousands of juvenile courts throughout the Nation restrictions that the Constitution made applicable to adversary criminal trials. [1] I believe the Court's decision is wholly unsound as a matter of constitutional law, and sadly unwise as a matter of judicial policy.
Juvenile proceedings are not criminal trials. They are not civil trials. They are simply not adversary proceedings. ”

“ Much of the judicial attitude manifested by the Court's opinion today and earlier holdings in this field is really a protest against inadequate juvenile court staffs and facilities; we 'burn down the stable to get rid of the mice.' The lack of support and the distressing growth of juvenile crime have combined to make for a literal breakdown in many if not most juvenile courts. ”

“ Whatever may be the classification of juvenile court proceedings, they are often conducted without admitting all the public. But it has never been the practice wholly to exclude parents, relatives, and friends, or to refuse juveniles the benefit of counsel.↑ Under Michigan law contempt proceedings against a witness before a one-man grand jury are criminal in nature. ”

“ The juvenile court is a life-saving institute in society. "It is scarcely necessary to say that child-saving methods, institutions, and organizations have long flourished in the United States. The Northern States have regarded juvenile reformatories as a part of their correctional equipment, and the courts have served as vestibules for such institutions ”

“ Now, the boy who violates a law is not arrested and placed in jail or even a Police Station, but under the splendid Juvenile Court system the boy is brought into the presence of a judge who has an opportunity of showing what he would like to do in other courts, by extending an encouraging hand to the wayfaring boy. ”

“ In theory the juvenile court was to be helpful and rehabilitative rather than punitive. In fact the distinction often disappears, not only because of the absence of facilities and personnel but also because of the limits of knowledge and technique. In theory the court's action was to affix no stigmatizing label. In fact a delinquent is generally viewed by employers, schools, the armed services-by society generally-as a criminal. In theory the court was to treat children guilty of criminal acts in noncriminal ways. ”

“ Mistakes under any law may be made. No system is perfect. If any conceives the idea that the Juvenile Court was created for the purpose of correcting or reforming every disorderly child, they are, of course, mistaken. Jails and criminal courts never did that. ”

“ The procedure used in Denver of filing a report with the juvenile judge and temporarily placing the offender in Juvenile Hall pending a hearing is in keeping with advanced procedures being followed with reference to juvenile offenders throughout the United States.↑ Indeed, no attorney was obtained for petitioner's trial in the juvenile court. ”