{"id":30924,"date":"2022-07-21T12:00:05","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T17:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/content.findlaw-admin.com\/ability-legal\/constitution\/amendment5\/fifth-amendment-due-process--juvenile-defendants.html"},"modified":"2022-07-21T12:00:05","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T17:00:05","slug":"fifth-amendment-due-process-juvenile-defendants","status":"publish","type":"constitution","link":"https:\/\/constitution.findlaw.com\/amendment5\/fifth-amendment-due-process-juvenile-defendants.html","title":{"rendered":"Fifth Amendment Due Process: Juvenile Defendants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Fifth Amendment Due Process: Juvenile Defendants<\/h1>\n\n
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\n By FindLaw Staff<\/a> | Legally reviewed by Laura Temme, Esq.<\/a>\n | Last reviewed\n
\n \n <\/i>\n Legally Reviewed\n <\/summary>\n\n
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This article has been written and reviewed for legal accuracy, clarity, and style by FindLaw\u2019s team of legal writers and attorneys<\/a> and in accordance with our editorial standards<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/details>\n\n

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The last updated date refers to the last time this article was reviewed by FindLaw or one of our contributing authors<\/a>. We make every effort to keep our articles updated. For information regarding a specific legal issue affecting you, please contact an attorney in your area<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/details>\n<\/section>\n\n\n

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Due process is essential to the American legal system, especially when it comes to criminal trials. Cases involving minors present unique legal questions – which the Supreme Court has strived to answer for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Fifth Amendment states:<\/p>\n

“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,\u00a0nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”<\/i><\/p>\n

What It Means for Juvenile Defendants<\/h2>\n

United States Library of Congress,\u00a0The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

All fifty states and the District of Columbia provide for dealing with juvenile offenders outside the criminal system for adult offenders.1<\/sup>\u00a0Their juvenile justice systems apply both to offenses that would be criminal if committed by an adult and to delinquent behavior not recognizable under laws dealing with adults, such as habitual truancy, deportment endangering the morals or health of the juvenile or others, or disobedience making the juvenile uncontrollable by his parents.<\/p>\n

The reforms of the early part of the 20th century provided not only for segregating juveniles from adult offenders in the adjudication, detention, and correctional facilities, but they also dispensed with the substantive and procedural rules surrounding criminal trials which were mandated by due process.<\/p>\n

Justification for this abandonment of constitutional guarantees was offered by describing juvenile courts as civil not criminal and as not dispensing criminal punishment, and offering the theory that the state was acting as parens patriae (“parent of the people”) for the juvenile offender and was in no sense his adversary.2<\/sup><\/p>\n

Disillusionment with the results of juvenile reforms coupled with a judicial emphasis on the constitutional protection of the accused led in the 1960s to a substantial restriction of these elements of juvenile jurisprudence. After tracing in much detail this history of juvenile courts, the Court held in\u00a0In re Gault<\/a><\/i>3<\/sup>\u00a0that the application of due process to juvenile proceedings would not endanger the good intentions vested in the system nor diminish the features of the system which were deemed desirable\u2014emphasis upon rehabilitation rather than punishment, a measure of informality, avoidance of the stigma of a criminal conviction, the low visibility of the process \u2013 but that the consequences of the absence of due process standards made their application necessary.4<\/sup><\/p>\n

Thus, the Court in\u00a0Gault<\/i>\u00a0required that notice of charges be given in time for the juvenile to prepare a defense, required a hearing in which the juvenile could be represented by retained or appointed counsel, required observance of the rights of confrontation and cross-examination, and required that the juvenile be protected against self-incrimination.5<\/sup>\u00a0It did not pass upon the right of appeal or the failure to make transcripts of hearings.<\/p>\n

Earlier, the Court had held that before a juvenile could be waived to an adult court for trial, there had to be a hearing and findings of reasons, a result based on statutory interpretation but apparently constitutionalized in\u00a0Gault<\/i>.6<\/sup>\u00a0Subsequently, the Court held that the essentials of due process and fair treatment required that a juvenile could be adjudged delinquent only on evidence beyond a reasonable doubt when the offense charged would be a crime if committed by an adult,7<\/sup>\u00a0but still later the Court held that jury trials were not constitutionally required in juvenile trials.8<\/sup><\/p>\n

Do Minors Have Miranda Rights?<\/h2>\n

On a few occasions, the Court has considered whether rights accorded to adults during the investigation of crime are to be accorded juveniles. In one such case, the Court ruled that a juvenile undergoing custodial interrogation by police had not invoked\u00a0a\u00a0Miranda<\/i>\u00a0right<\/a>\u00a0to remain silent by requesting permission to consult with his probation officer, since a probation officer could not be equated with an attorney, but indicated as well that a juvenile’s waiver of\u00a0Miranda<\/i>\u00a0rights was to be evaluated under the same totality-of-the-circumstances approach applicable to adults.<\/p>\n

That approach “permits\u2014indeed it mandates\u2014inquiry into all the circumstances surrounding the interrogation . . . includ[ing] evaluation of the juvenile’s age, experience, education, background, and intelligence, and into whether he has the capacity to understand the warnings given him.”9<\/sup><\/p>\n

Do Minors Have Rights Against Search and Seizure?<\/h2>\n

In another case, the Court ruled that, although the Fourth Amendment applies to searches of students by public school authorities, neither the warrant requirement nor the probable cause standard is appropriate.10<\/sup>\u00a0Instead, a simple reasonableness standard governs all searches of students’ persons and effects by school authorities.11<\/sup><\/p>\n

The Court ruled in\u00a0Schall v. Martin<\/a><\/i>12<\/sup>\u00a0that preventive detention of juveniles does not offend due process when it serves the legitimate state purpose of protecting society and the juvenile from potential consequences of pretrial crime, when the terms of confinement serve those legitimate purposes and are nonpunitive, and when procedures provide sufficient protection against erroneous and unnecessary detentions. A statute authorizing pretrial detention of accused juvenile delinquents on a finding of a serious risk that the juvenile would commit crimes prior to trial, providing for expedited hearings (the maximum possible detention was 17 days), and guaranteeing a formal, adversarial probable cause hearing within that period, was found to satisfy these requirements.<\/p>\n

Related Resources<\/h3>\n