NCJ Number
155898
Date Published
1994
Length
79 pages
Annotation
This report describes Minnesota statutes and cases that provide rights, responsibilities, and protections for young people different from those applicable to adults.
Abstract
This guidebook is designed to provide legislators an overview of all laws that affect youth, so as to be useful for assessing any proposals that would change these policies. Federal statutes and cases are included only in a few areas where they dictate State policy or where State policy has been closely linked with Federal law for some other reason. Part 1 describes the major statutory and case law that differentiates between youths and adults. These provisions have been divided into the areas of economic regulations, education, family relations, health and social services, and criminal law. There is a miscellaneous section for other age provisions. Minnesota law makes distinctions between adults and minors not only with regard to substantive rights and responsibilities, as described in Part 1, but also with respect to the type of court procedures under which these rights and responsibilities are judicially decided. Part 2 of this guidebook explains these court procedures in three sections. The section on civil adult court describes procedures applicable to minors who are parties or witnesses in civil lawsuits in adult court. A section on criminal adult court explains procedures applicable to minors who are involved in criminal cases in adult court as witnesses or parties. It also explains certain procedural protections that pertain to the care and custody of minors who have committed criminal acts. The section on the juvenile court describes the purposes and procedures of the juvenile court, which hears most cases that involve criminal acts committed by minors and cases that involve children in need of protection or care by the State.