Jennifer M. Segadelli. Student Note. Minding the Gap: Extending Adult Jury Trial Rights to Adolescents While Maintaining a Childhood Commitment to Rehabilitation, 8 Seattle J. for Soc. Just. 683-728 (2010).
Introduction:
Notwithstanding a few cases to the contrary, nearly all states have held that in the absence of a state statute, a juvenile may not demand that his or her delinquency proceeding be determined by a jury. The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution grants the accused "in all criminal prosecutions . . . the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed." In McKeiver v. Pennsylvania, Justice Blackmun, writing for the plurality, declined to extend the right to a jury trial in juvenile criminal proceedings in order to uphold the hallmarks of restoration, compassion, and rehabilitation that have set aside the juvenile system from the adult system since its inception. But in the forty years since Justice Blackmun's opinion in McKeiver, has legislative escalation of significant punitive consequences imposed in juvenile sentences eroded these hallmarks? If so, does this escalation elevate the importance of acknowledging the right for an accused juvenile to demand the jury trial afforded to adults who are prosecuted in a criminal justice system primarily focused on punishment, not rehabilitation, as the goal?
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