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Abstract

The American juvenile court system does not recognize a right to a jury trial. It should. The juvenile court system was born out of the Progressive Era, a period of social and political change in the U.S. Its creators envisioned a system that cared for children and considered which individual treatment would suit each child in the system. However, the actual history of the juvenile court did not follow this idealistic vision. To combat the punitive system into which juvenile court had evolved, the Supreme Court decided in subsequent years that children deserve the due process rights recognized in adult criminal court: the right to counsel, notice, confrontation and crossexamination of witnesses, the privilege against self-incrimination, and the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard of proof. The Court reasoned that because the juvenile court does not act all that differently from the adult criminal court, the same rights afforded to adults should be afforded to children. Despite upholding the above rights for juveniles, the Court has expressly rejected the jury trial right in the juvenile court. However, states should still elect to provide jury trials in their juvenile courts. Juries would give the juvenile court system more legitimacy, protect children from bias, and ensure that the juvenile court system has fair processes and appropriate punishments.

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