On Friday, June 20, 2008, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that juveniles have a constitutional right to trial by jury when prosecuted. The Court said that as lawmakers have cracked down on juvenile crime differences between the juvenile and adult system have narrowed.
It is important to note that Texas and the majority of states do NOT offer a jury trial as an option to juveniles, but Kansas did. Thus the case resolved around the issue of there being a provision for a juvenile jury trial but judges were not granting requests for the jury trial.
The juvenile justice system was set up a century ago to offer a less formal atmosphere and to seek ways of rehabilitation. Even the language used in the juvenile systems of most states is totally different from that of the adult system.
The recent trend has been to certify serious juvenile offenders as adults and transfer them to the adult criminal justice system. Each state that does this, imposes a minimum age at which a juvenile may be certified.
In 1995 Missouri eliminated a minimum age for juveniles to be certified as adults when the crimes include rape, robbery, assault, or murder. Florida also has tried and sentenced as adults some very young people.
Do you think that juveniles under the age of 16 should be certified as adults for very serious offenses? What would you set as the minimum age of certification?
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