Brown Undergraduate Law Review — Vol. 2 No. 2 (Spring 2021)

The Failure of the Treatment of Low-Level Offenders in the Juvenile Justice System
detained for stealing money from a women?s locker room.
The judge used the standard of proof applicable in civil
cases, as established by Section 744(b) of the New York
Family Court Act, which is lower than ?beyond a
reasonable doubt? required in criminal trials. The US
Supreme Court declared the New York Family Court
statute unconstitutional, requiring the standard of proof
beyond a reasonable doubt in the adjudicatory stage of
juvenile delinquency proceedings.
The central argument on behalf of the State was that
juvenile delinquency cases operated as civil cases and thus
did not require the full protections of criminal cases,
including the higher standard of proof. However, as the
Court had decided in In re Gault, juvenile delinquency
cases are considered civil as a "label of convenience" and
the proceedings are entitled to the essentials of due process
and fair treatment. Justice Brennan, writing for a
five-member majority of the Court, said ?civil labels and
good intentions do not themselves obviate the need for
criminal due process safeguards in juvenile courts.? 67 The
charged with a misdemeanor and placed on probation and
the other detained after a felony conviction. In both cases,
the judge denied the defendants a trial by jury. The North
Carolina cases involved a group of 46 children, aged 11 to
15, who were charged with various misdemeanors after a
planned demonstration protesting a school consolidation
plan. All these juveniles were also denied a trial by jury
and a public trial.
The Court ruled the due process clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment did not grant the right to jury trial in state
juvenile court delinquency proceedings. The opinion,
written by Justice Harry Blackmun and joined by three
other members of the Court, detailed that with In re Gault
and In re Winship, the Court attempted to give procedural
orderliness to the juvenile courts, while maintaining the
atmosphere of flexibility, individuality, and rehabilitation.
The Court stated mandating jury trials in the juvenile
system would remake the courts into a "fully adversary
process," against the founding principles of a separate
juvenile court system. 69
Court argued that these protections were constitutionally
The appellants argued the proceedings were ?substantially
necessary for the juvenile courts and would not
similar?to a criminal trial, and therefore should be afforded
compromise the confidentiality, informality, and flexibility
the same due process protections granted in criminal trials.
needed in juvenile proceedings. 68
With the Court on a trend of increasing due process rights
for juvenile courts, McKeiver et al. v. Pennsylvania (1971)
marked the end of due process right expansions for
juvenile proceedings. McKeiver combined two writs of
certiorari, one from the state Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania and the other from the state Supreme Court
of North Carolina, to determine whether the due process
clause gave the right to trial by jury for juvenile
However, the Court disagreed, stating that the jury trial
would not remedy the defects previously outlined in the
juvenile justice system, both by the Court in Gault and
through President Lyndon Johnson?s Commission on Law
Enforcement and Administration of Justice report, which
the Court cited in its opinion. On the contrary, the Court
argued, a jury trial would not lend to the fact-finding
function of the court, and the juvenile court system was
still entitled to different functions, related to rehabilitative
delinquency proceedings. The Pennsylvania cases goals, than criminal trials. 70
concerned two boys, aged 15 and 16, one of whom was
66. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 28.
67. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 366.
68. Ibid.
69. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 366, 545.
70. McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 543.
Brown Undergraduate Law Review
16