Juvenile justice system

“ It is frequent practice that rules governing the arrest and interrogation of adults by the police are not observed in the case of juveniles. [13]
The history and theory underlying this development are well-known, but a recapitulation is necessary for purposes of this opinion. The Juvenile Court movement began in this country at the end of the last century. From the juvenile court statute adopted in Illinois in 1899, the system has spread to every State in the Union, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. ”

“ 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. ”

“ United States, supra, we stated that the Juvenile Court Judge's exercise of the power of the state as parens patriae was not unlimited. We said that "the admonition to function in a ‘parental' relationship is not an invitation to procedural arbitrariness." [44] With respect to the waiver by the Juvenile Court to the adult court of jurisdiction over an offense committed by a youth, we said that
there is no place in our system of law for reaching a result of such tremendous consequences without ceremony — without hearing, without effective assistance of counsel, without a statement of reasons. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They shall, in addition to the same courses offered by ordinary schools, as required by the Law on Compulsory Education, put emphasis on education in the legal system and help the juveniles to rectify or treat their serious misbehavior in light of the causes for such misbehavior and the psychological characteristics of the juveniles.
⁠Families and schools shall show concern for and take good care of the juveniles who study in work-study schools and respect their personality and dignity, and may not impose physical punishment on, maltreat, or discriminate against them. ”

“ In my view, however, it is not sufficient to accommodate the [p397] facts about juveniles that an individual youth's culpability may be taken into account in the decision to transfer him or her from the juvenile to the adult court system for trial, or that a capital sentencing jury is instructed to consider youth and other mitigating factors. I believe that the Eighth Amendment requires that a person who lacks that full degree of responsibility for his or her actions associated with adulthood not be sentenced to death. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There is, however, a general consensus of opinion as to the desirability of reformatory, rather than punitive measures, being dealt out to children and very young persons. This system has, in almost every case, been found to work well. The authors of The Jail Cradle, Who Rocks It? and In Prison and Out, have dealt with the problem of juvenile crime—and not in vain. From the latter work, the following paragraph proves that in this matter, as in many others, Germany is abreast of the age:—
In Germany, no child under twelve years of age can suffer a penal sentence. ”

“ In fact, during the first quarter of the present century, the extent and ramifications of juvenile crime had almost reduced statesmen to despair. But the spread of the Reformatory system and the introduction more recently of Industrial and Truant Schools for children who have just drifted, or are fast drifting, into criminal courses, has had a remarkable effect in diminishing the juvenile population of our prisons. At the present time the proportion of juveniles under sixteen to the rest of the local prison population is only a little over two per cent. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Finally, a categorical rule gives all juvenile nonhomicide offenders a chance to demonstrate maturity and reform. The juvenile should not be deprived of the opportunity to achieve maturity of judgment and self-recognition of human worth and potential. ”

“ For, however much the juvenile system may have failed in practice, its very existence as an ostensibly beneficent and noncriminal process for the care and guidance of young persons demonstrates the existence of the community's sympathy and concern for the young. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Court adds that the rate of juvenile crime is steadily rising. All this, as the Court suggests, indicates the importance of these due process issues, but it mirrors no less vividly that state authorities are confronted by formidable and immediate problems involving the most fundamental social values. The state legislatures have determined that the most hopeful solution for [p70] these problems is to be found in specialized courts, organized under their own rules and imposing distinctive consequences. ”

“ It would be entirely unrealistic to carve out of the Fifth Amendment all statements by juveniles on the ground that these cannot lead to 'criminal' involvement. In the first place, juvenile proceedings to determine'd elinquency,' which may lead to commitment to a state institution, must be regarded as 'criminal' for purposes of the privilege against self-incrimination. ”

“ Moreover, the determinations required by juvenile transfer statutes to certify a juvenile for trial as an adult ensure individualized consideration of the maturity and moral responsibility of 16- and 17-year-old offenders before they are even held to stand trial as adults. [6] The application of this [p376] particularized system to the petitioners can be declared constitutionally inadequate only if there is a consensus, not that 17 or 18 is the age at which most persons, or even almost all persons, achieve sufficient maturity to be held fully responsible for murder ”

“ However, to extend such a system to children boarded out in private homes would be to ask for endless trouble. People would be loath to accept State wards into their homes if it laid them open to official visits from laymen whose sole function was to hear complaints from the children. ”

“ In this regard, I think it worth emphasizing that the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a juvenile committed a criminal act before he is found to be a delinquent does not (1) interfere with the worthy goal of rehabilitating the juvenile, (2) make any significant difference in the extent to which a youth is stigmatized as a 'criminal' because he has been found to be a delinquent, or (3) burden the juvenile courts with a procedural requirement that will make juvenile adjudications significantly more time consuming, or rigid. ”

“ They soon became hardened criminals through their associations. But experience proves that with the right treatment a majority of those who fall into crime before the age of sixteen can be redeemed to normal social conduct. Experiments with boys showed that there was a better way of trial and punishment than that which had been in vogue, and the juvenile courts that they devised have been widely adopted. The new plan is based on the principle of making friends with the boy. ”

“ All that is just as true here. Almost all jurisdictions allow some juveniles to be tried in adult court for some kinds of homicide. See Dept. of Justice, H. Snyder & M. Sickmund, Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report 110–114 (hereinafter 2006 National Report) . But most States do not have separate penalty provisions for those juvenile offenders. Of the 29 jurisdictions mandating life without parole for children, more than half do so by virtue of generally applicable penalty provisions, imposing the sentence without regard to age. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By removing youth from the balance—by subjecting a juvenile to the same life-without-parole sentence applicable to an adult—these laws prohibit a sentencing authority from assessing whether the law's harshest term of imprisonment proportionately punishes a juvenile offender. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I very much fear that this Court, by imposing these rigid procedural requirements, may inadvertently have served to discourage these efforts to find more satisfactory solutions for the problems of juvenile crime, and may thus now hamper enlightened development of the systems of juvenile courts. It is [p78] appropriate to recall that the Fourteenth Amendment does not compel the law to remain passive in the midst of change; to demand otherwise denies "every quality of the law but its age." ”

“ We do not in this opinion consider the impact of these constitutional provisions upon the totality of the relationship of the juvenile and the state. We do not even consider the entire process relating to juvenile 'delinquents.' For example, we are not here concerned with the procedures or constitutional rights applicable to the pre-judicial stages of the juvenile process, nor do we direct our attention to the post-adjudicative or dispositional process. ”

“ State organs, people’s organizations, social organizations, enterprises, public institutions, residents’ committees, villagers’ committees, schools, and families, among others, shall respectively assume their responsibilities and cooperate with each other, work together to effectively prevent juvenile delinquency, eliminate various negative factors that give rise to juveniles’ illegal and criminal activities in a timely manner, and create a favorable social environment for the physical and mental health and development of juveniles. ”

“ Article 24 The people’s governments at all levels and their relevant departments, people’s procuratorates, people’s courts, communist youth leagues, young pioneers, women’s federations, disabled persons’ federations, and working committees for the care of the next generation, among others, shall, in light of the actual circumstances, organize and carry out various forms of publicity and education activities for the prevention of juvenile delinquency. Where conditions permit, legal education bases for juveniles may be established so as to provide rule of law education for juveniles. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Siler, The Need for Defense Counsel in the Juvenile Court, 11 Crime & Delin. 45, 57-58. Compare Handler, The Juvenile Court and the Adversary System: Problems of Function and Form, 1965 Wis.L.Rev. 7, 32.↑ Estimates of the number of children in this situation brought before juvenile courts range from 26% to some 48%; variation seems chiefly a product both of the inadequacy of records and of the difficulty of categorizing precisely the conduct with which juveniles are charged. See generally Sheridan, Juveniles Who Commit Noncriminal Acts: Why Treat in a Correctional System? ”

“ The principle behind today's decision seems to be only that because juveniles are different from adults, they must be sentenced differently. See ante, at 476–480. There is no clear reason that principle would not bar all mandatory sentences for juveniles, or any juvenile sentence as harsh as what a similarly situated adult would receive. Unless confined, the only stopping point for the Court's analysis would be never permitting juvenile offenders to be tried as adults. ”