NCJ Number
192709
Journal
Criminal Justice Magazine Volume: 15 Issue: 1 Dated: Spring 2000 Pages: 1-7
Date Published
2001
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This article provides a step-by-step analysis, using a case from the author's experience, of how children prosecuted as if they were adults are deprived of their rights and penalized for being children in an adult court.
Abstract
The author explains the disadvantages experienced by children and adolescents who commit crimes that warrant being transferred to adult court for processing. In the case at issue, 13-year-old girl was with her 17-year-old boyfriend when he strangled a man in his car, and she subsequently drove the car before her arrest with her boyfriend at his house. This article explains how children are at a disadvantage, compared to adults, in the commission of a crime; at arrest; in bail or bond hearings; at probable cause and preliminary hearings; in preparing for trial; in communications with their attorneys; in testifying; in plea bargaining, instructions, and decisions; and at sentencing. The author concludes that a child in adult criminal court is at a huge disadvantage, not just when compared to children in juvenile court, but when compared with adults charged with similar crimes in the same court. The trial demonstrated that the due process and fact-finding protections as well as the ingredients of fundamental fairness that can be made to work so well for adults hardly work at all for kids tried as if they were adults.