When Rehabilitation Becomes Punitive, Incarcerated Minors Lack Major Rights
Because delinquency hearings are labeled as “civil” rather than criminal, some rights that are guaranteed to adults in criminal proceedings do not extend to youth tried in juvenile court. When determining which constitutional rights should be incorporated into the juvenile court system, courts consider the Due Process Clause’s guarantee of “fundamental fairness.” Under this “Fundamental Fairness Test,” the Supreme Court found that the Sixth Amendment’s right to trial by jury does not extend to juvenile courts . . . However, the Supreme Court’s decisions on juvenile adjudication were made in the 1960s and 1970s, “prior to the explicit movement towards punitive juvenile justice.”
Little Fish, Big Protection
“The Endangered Species Act provides an incredible amount of legal protection. Someone could potentially go to prison for a whole year and be fined a whopping $50,000 for harming just one single pupfish… And that is precisely what happened.”