RIGHT TO TRIAL BY JURY AS A JUVENILE

Right to trial by jury as a Juvenile

Abstract

The right to a jury trial has a long and storied history in both English common law and the American legal tradition. Interestingly, the right was extended to juveniles at common law, but that tradition did not find its way to the New World.12 Instead, a new and entirely separate juvenile justice system was constructed at the end of the nineteenth century. That system emerged out of the progressive reform movement of the time. Beginning in the 1960s, the United States Supreme Court began to recognize the necessity of due process rights to this separate judicial system. But progress has been neither fast nor thorough. Such incremental progress has put the right to a jury trial and the juvenile justice system on a collision course for the last quarter century. Now that they have collided, it must be determined whether the benefits of the separate system of juvenile justice and the exercise of the right to a jury trial can both be salvaged.

Right to trial by jury as a Juvenile Introduction

To understand the integral part that the jury trial plays in American criminal justice, one must first understand the origin and history of the right. Justice Hugo Black captured the right's importance when he stated succinctly that it is one of the fundamental aspects of criminal justice in the English-speaking world.”16 The majority in Duncan v. Louisiana—the seminal case on an adult's right to a jury trial— established that the right is “fundamental to the American scheme of justice. However, as Justice Black intimated, the history of the right does not begin in the New World.

The right played a fundamental part within English common law, long before the formation of the United States of America and the adoption of the Bill of Rights.18 This history helps explain the right's status as crucial to maintaining a civilized society.19 Indeed, scholars and judges argue that the history of the right dates back to the Magna Carta in 1215.20 Under English common law, the rule was that “the truth of every accusation . .. should afterwards be confirmed by the unanimous suffrage of twelve of [the defendant's] equals and neighbours, indifferently chosen and superior to all suspicion. When British colonists arrived in the New World, they wasted little time incorporating the right to a jury trial in the new criminal justice system. On October 19, 1765, the Stamp Act Congress recognized the right to a jury trial for all British subjects. The First Continental Congress and Declaration of Independence then followed suit.23 In both instances, the colonists pointedly noted an affinity for trial by jury and reinforced an innate distrust of judges that relied on the British Crown for their salaries. The right to a jury trial was formally adopted in American law when the U.S. Constitution was ratified. In response to growing concerns that the right was not properly safeguarded, it was then ...