The Juvenile Court System

The United States juvenile court system has come a long way throughout the years. There has been many significant cases in the juvenile system that set the standard for what the system is now. Cases such as Kent vs. United States, In re Gault, and In re Winship are examples of major cases that challenged state rulings and later changed the technicalities of future, similar cases because they called upon the Supreme Court to change or state the rules. These three cases built some of the framework on what the juvenile justice system is today.
In a case known as Kent versus the United States, a sixteen year old, Morris Kent was tried as an adult without first getting a counselor or a proper hearing to approve an adult court setting. Sixteen year …show more content…
When Winship went to court, the court ruled that Winship was guilty based on preponderance of evidence. This evidence was based on an employee’s testimony that he saw Winship running from the store shortly before the woman discovered her money was missing from her purse. Contrary to other employee’s testimonies that said the witness’s testimony couldn’t have been factual based on his location, this is the preponderance of evidence that the court accepted as plausible. Preponderance of evidence is different from beyond a reasonable doubt because with preponderance, the evidence does not directly point to one person or another based on the amount of incriminating evidence against said person; the preponderance of evidence points to the more probable truth based on the evidence, but not beyond a reasonable doubt. The court also based their ruling on the fact that had this crime been committed by an adult, the punishment would be much more severe. With that in mind, the juvenile court sentenced Winship to a juvenile delinquent school, even with the possibility that Winship was not guilty. Later, Winship and his defense attorney appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court with the reasoning that proof beyond a reasonable doubt was what maintained due process, thus should be required in juvenile courts. The Supreme Court ruled that …show more content…
Kent vs. The United States determined that all juvenile courts must give every juvenile defendant the same basic due process rights as an adult. Furthermore, the In re Gault case ascertained that adults and juveniles had the same legal rights as the other when it came to what they were allowed to do in court. In addition, the In re Winship case stated that proof beyond a reasonable doubt was required in order to convict a juvenile. All three of these cases are significant in being the framework of the juvenile justice system because they set and stated the standards and protocols of due process and fair treatment in a juvenile