Juvenile Transfers to Adult Court

Juvenile Transfers to Adult Court

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Juvenile Transfers to Adult Court

The establishment of a juvenile justice system over a hundred years ago in the United States of America, created a separate court for juveniles. This brought about the issue of when and how to transfer minor offenders from juvenile courts to adult criminal courts. A juvenile offender must be transferred from juvenile to criminal court in various conditions. The juvenile offender must be between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, they must have been charged with capital felony, class A or B felonies, or arson murder. Prosecutors may request and the court order transfer of children charged with other felonies to the adult court. In the history of juvenile justice, there have been cases of transfer of juvenile offenders from juvenile to criminal courts.

The case Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541(1966) is an example of a case transferred to the criminal court from the juvenile justice system. Three main types of waivers are used in the transfer of juveniles to an adult criminal court. These include judicial waiver, which is a waiver by the juvenile court judge, statutory exclusion, which is a waiver, provided by the legislature mainly based on age and or offense criteria, and lastly waiver by concurrent jurisdiction, in this case, the prosecutor authorized by the state. In the case Kent v. United States, the judicial waiver was used. Under the judicial waiver, the judge in the juvenile court makes the decision. A hearing is held in the juvenile court, in response to the request of the prosecutor that the court waive the jurisdiction over the matter and transfer the case to an adult criminal court system. Kent was then transferred to an adult court.

Morris A. Kent Jr. a sixteen year old was arrested and charged with house breaking, rape and robbery in 1961, while on probation from an earlier case. As a juvenile, Kent was subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the District of Columbia juvenile court unless that court should waive jurisdiction over him and remit him for trial to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia after full investigation. Upon interrogation, Kent not only confessed to the offenses, but also offered information on several similar incidences. Kent’s defense attorney filed motions to request a hearing on the issue of jurisdiction and to seek access to the juvenile court’s social services file on Kent accumulated during probation for his previous offense. This was upon the attorney’s anticipation that the District of Columbia juvenile court would consider providing waiver of jurisdiction over Kent and remitting him for trial to the criminal justice system. This was not the case however, since the juvenile court judge did not provide a ruling on this motion, but entered an order with the statement that the juvenile court was waiving jurisdiction over Kent after making what the judge termed as ‘full investigation’. The judge did not describe the investigation grounds for the waiver.

Kent was indicted in the district criminal court, but this was not the end of the case. The petitioner moved to dismiss the indictment on grounds that the juvenile court’s waiver was not valid. The motion was overruled and Kent was then tried in a criminal court and found guilty on six counts of house breaking and robbery, but acquitted on two counts of rape because of insanity. Kent was sentenced to 30 to 90 years in prison. On appeal, Kent’s defense attorney raised among other issues, the validity of the juvenile court’s waiver of jurisdiction. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the appeal, refused to scrutinize the juvenile court’s judge investigation, and found the procedure leading to the waiver valid.

In appealing to the United States Supreme Court, Kent’s defense attorney argued that there was no complete investigation by the juvenile court judge, and that Kent was denied his constitutional right because he was a minor. The United States Supreme Court ruled the juvenile court order-waiving jurisdiction invalid, that Kent’s defense counsel should have had access to all records involved in the decision to waive jurisdiction, and that the judge should have provided a written statement of reasons for the waiver. In addition, the court held that waiver hearings may not conform to all formal requirements of a criminal trial, but they must measure up to the essentials of due process and fair treatment. The court held that juveniles facing waiver are entitled to representation by counsel, a written statement of the reasons for waiver, and access to social service records.

I do not agree with the decision to transfer the juvenile in this case to the adult criminal court. Firstly, the accused is a minor, whom upon psychiatric and psychologist evaluation prior to the trial, was found to be a victim of psychopathology. This, in addition to the previous history of the minor being a delinquent, is reason enough to trigger the need for alternative methods of correction of this minor offender without waiver of jurisdiction. The family history of the offender given as being under the care of a single mother, and whose father left when he was two years of age elicits the need for consideration of the etiology of the offender’s delinquency. On grounds of procedure used for the waiver, I do not agree with the juvenile court’s judge to deny the defense attorney access to Kent’s social services files. In my opinion, the juvenile court judge should have provided clear and written statements on the investigation that led to waiver of jurisdiction.

References

Fagan, J., & Zimring , F. E. (2000). The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to the Criminal Court. University of Chicago Press.

Mays, G. L., & Ruddell, R. (2012). Do the Crime, Do the Time: Juvenile Criminals and Adult Justice in the American Court System. ABC-CLIO.

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (2000). Juvenile Transfers to Criminal Court in the 1990’s: Lessons Learned from Four Studies. Washington D.C: U.S Department of Justice.