Reconceptualizing Due Process in Juvenile Justice: Contributions From Law and Social Science
Reconceptualizing Due Process in Juvenile Justice: Contributions From Law and Social Science
ABSTRACT
This article challenges the accepted wisdom, at least since the Supreme Court’s
decision in Gault, that procedures in juvenile delinquency court should mimic the
adult criminal process. The legal basis for this challenge is Gault itself, as well as
the other Supreme Court cases that triggered the juvenile justice revolution of the
past decades, for all of these cases relied on the due process clause, not the provisions
of the Constitution that form the foundation for adult criminal procedure. That
means that the central goal in juvenile justice is fundamental fairness, which does
not have to be congruent with the adversarial tradition of adult criminal court.
Instead, as the Court’s administrative procedure cases illustrate, fundamental
fairness theory aims at constructing the procedural framework that best promotes
fairness, accuracy and efficiency in the setting in question. Social science, and in
particular procedural justice research, can play an important role in fashioning this
framework, because it can empirically examine various procedural mechanisms, in
various settings, with these objectives in mind. To date, procedural justice research
suggests that the procedures associated with the adult criminal process are not
optimal even in that setting, much less in a regime focused on rehabilitating or
punishing children. We propose a performance-based management system for
implementing these legal and scientific insights in the juvenile justice context.
Table of Contents
Part I: Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Part II: Substance and Procedure in Juvenile Court . . . . . . . 6
A. A Brief History of Juvenile Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
B. The Supreme Court’s Procedural Revolution
in Juvenile Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Part III: Other Visions of Procedural Due Process . . . . . . . . 17
A. Due Process in the Administrative Setting . . . . . . 18
B. Juvenile Due Process in Non-Delinquency
Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
∗
Mark Fondacaro, J.D., Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of
Psychology and Associate Director, Levin College of Law Center on
Children and Families, University of Florida; Christopher Slobogin, J.D.,
LL.M., occupies the Stephen C. O’Connell chair at the University of Florida
Fredric G. Levin College of Law; Tricia Cross, J.D., M.A., is an Associate at
Arnold & Porter LLP, in Los Angeles. The authors would like to thank
Barbara Woodhouse, Norman Poythress, and participants in a workshop at
the University of Florida College of law for their comments on this article.
Due Process in Juvenile Justice 2
Part I: Introduction
The early juvenile court was rooted in the state’s parens patriae
authority.1 Its goal was to treat wayward juveniles according to their
“best interests”--akin to the way loving parents deal with their
disobedient offspring--rather than as fully accountable adults under
the criminal law.2 Instead of prosecution and punishment, juveniles
were subject to “adjudication” and “disposition,” 3 designed to help
them change for the better.
A crucial corollary to this avuncular theory of juvenile justice
was the belief that the procedures implementing it should also be
different from the adult model. More specifically, proponents of the
juvenile court thought that procedural “informality” would best
Legal Order: The Case for Abolishing the Juvenile Court, 69 N.C. L. REV. 1083,
1120 (1991)(“Treating juveniles differently from adults–by denying them
jury trials, for example–violates the consistency norm of equal treatment for
all and reminds the young that they do not have all the rights assigned to
full-fledged members of the society.”); Barry C. Feld, Abolish the Juvenile
Court: Youthfulness, Criminal Responsibility and Sentencing Policy, 88 J.CRIM.L.
& CRIMINOL. 68, 97 (1998) (“Procedural justice requires providing youths
with full procedural parity with adult defendants and additional safeguards
to account for the disadvantages of youth in the justice system.”). Cf.
Katherine H. Federle, The Abolition of the Juvenile Court: A Proposal for the
Preservation of Children's Legal Rights, 16 J. CONTEMP. L. 23, 23-24 (1990).
14 Parts of this article are based on Mark R. Fondacaro,
Reconceptualizing Due Process in Juvenile Justice: Contributions from Law and
Behavioral Science (December 7, 2001) (paper presented at the 1st Annual
Conference of the University of Florida Center on Children and the Law).
Due Process in Juvenile Justice 6
juveniles) were cast into a common prison with older culprits to mingle in
conversation and intercourse with them, acquire their habits, and by their
instruction to be made acquainted with the most artful methods of
perpetrating crime.") (quoting New York Society for the Reformation of
Delinquents, 1826 Ann. Rep. 4 (1827)).
17 DAVID ROTHMAN, CONSCIENCE AND CONVENIENCE: THE ASYLUM
AND ITS ALTERNATIVES IN PROGRESSIVE AMERICA 205-07 (1980).
18 See Ainsworth, supra note 13, at 1095 (describing the “child-study
face more severe sanctions than at any time since the inception of the
juvenile justice system nearly a century ago.”).
33 Monrad Paulsen, Kent v. United States: The Constitutional Context
of Juvenile Cases, 1966 SUP. CT. REV. 167, 167, 177-80 (1966).
34 Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963).
35 Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1 (1964)(fifth amendment privilege
37 Id. at 553-54.
38 387 U.S. 1 (1967).
39 Id. at 8-9.
40 Id. at 5.
41 Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).
42 387 U.S. at 6.
43 Id.
44 Id. at 7 n.3.
45 Id. at 7.
46 Id. at 10.
Due Process in Juvenile Justice 12
47 Id. at 4.
48 Id. at 31-59.
49 397 U.S. 358 (1970).
50 We do not mean to neglect Breed v. Jones, 421 U.S. 519 (1975),
which applied the double jeopardy clause to juvenile delinquency
proceedings, with Chief Justice Burger himself writing “it is simply too late
in the day to conclude . . . that a juvenile is not put in jeopardy [in a
delinquency proceeding].” Id. at 529. However, this decision is not
“procedural” in the sense we have been using that word in this article, to
refer to the rules governing the adjudication process. Rather it determined
whether an acquittal or conviction in juvenile court may be relitigated in
adult court. Furthermore, within three years of Breed, the Court had upheld
a state procedure that allowed prosecutors in juvenile court to appeal
referee decisions acquitting a child of delinquency charges, Swisher v.
Brady, 438 U.S. 204 (1978), a decision that significantly undermines the
thrust of Breed.
51 Id. at 364.
52 Id. at 368.
Due Process in Juvenile Justice 13
68 Id. at 541 (“our task here with respect to trial by jury, as it was in
Gault with respect to other claimed rights, ‘is to ascertain the precise impact
of the due process requirement’”).
69 Id. at 533 (“The Court, however, has not yet said that all rights
83 Id. at 267-71.
84 Judge Friendly’s opposition has already been noted. See Henry J.
Friendly, “Some Kind of Hearing,” 123 U.PA.L.REV. 1267, 1284-85, 1316 (1975).
In Goldberg itself, Justice Black argued that the costly procedures required by
the majority would reduce the funds available for welfare recipients and
make welfare bureaucrats more reluctant to find poor individuals eligible
for welfare. 397 U.S. at 278-79 (Black, J., dissenting). Professor Mashaw
documented these concerns in a study he did of New York’s welfare system.
Jerry L. Mashaw, The Management Side of Due Process: Accuracy, Fairness and
Timeliness in Adjudication of Social Welfare Claims, 59 CORNELL L. REV. 772
(1974).
85 This phrase was first used by Judge Friendly, Friendly, supra note
84, at 1267, and has been picked up by a number of commentators. JERRY L.
MASHAW, DUE PROCESS IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE STATE 8-9 (1985); Fox, supra
note 77, at 144.
86 See Friendly, supra note 84, at 1300-01; Richard J. Pierce, The Due
Process Counterrevolution of the 1990s?, 96 COLUM. L. REV. 1973, 1980 (1996)
(noting that the “combined effect” of Goldberg and other Court decisions
between 1970 and 1972 was “to expand the scope of due process protection
to encompass hundreds of new ‘property’ and ‘liberty’ interests” and that
“Goldberg suggested that the government is required to provide a formal
trial-type hearing before it could deprive anyone of any of the newly
recognized constitutional interests . . .”).
Due Process in Juvenile Justice 21
J.R.,98 decided three years after Mathews. There, the Supreme Court
addressed the issue of whether an adversarial proceeding was
required prior to a juvenile’s civil commitment to a state psychiatric
facility by the juvenile’s parents or guardians. The three-judge
federal district court, relying on Gault, held that due process in the
juvenile commitment context required adequate notice and an
adversary-type pre-deprivation hearing before an impartial judicial
or quasi-judicial body.99 But the Supreme Court reversed, holding
that due process was satisfied simply by an evaluation from a neutral
factfinder, who can be the admitting psychiatrist.100 Thus, Chief
Justice Burger concluded for six members of the Court, if the parents
or guardian seek admission and the neutral evaluator determines
that evidence of mental illness exists and that the child is suitable for
treatment, the child may be admitted to a psychiatric facility.101
In justifying this decision, the Court used Mathews’ three-
factor balancing test, looking at the first and third factors (the private
interest at stake and efficiency) before examining the second, risk of
error, factor. The Court conceded that civil commitment of a minor
implicates the juvenile’s constitutionally protected liberty interest.102
However, the Court reasoned that this liberty interest was qualified
by and coupled with the parental interest in the child’s well-being.
While recognizing that parents do not always act in their child’s best
interests, the Court was willing to assume that they normally do, an
assumption which weighed against highly formal procedures when
parents seek care for their children.103 The Court also agreed with
the state’s argument that adversarial proceedings were an inefficient
means of meeting its goals, by noting the benefits of speedy care, the
need to minimize the time mental health professionals spend in
132 Id.
133 Id. at 373.
134 Id. at 375.
135 Donna Shestowsky, Procedural Preferences in Alternative Dispute
Resolution: A Close, Modern Look at an Old Idea, 10 PSYCHOL., PUB. POL. & L.
211 (2004).
136 Id. at 213, 230-231.
137 Id. at 246.
138 Id. at 230; 239.
Due Process in Juvenile Justice 32
their preferred method of dispute resolution. 139 She also found that,
across all conditions, disputants preferred “direct control over the
presentation of evidence (rather than using a representative to do
so).”140 Again, these results, which are representative of a
considerable body of research,141 contrast with the early findings of
Thibaut and Walker, who found, using “pure” adversarial and
inquisitorial models, that participants are partial to adversarial
procedures and lawyers.
These three studies concluding that hybrid procedures are
preferred to the pure adversarial and inquisitorial models are all
subject to methodological criticism. For instance, the participants in
Shestowsky’s study were Stanford students, who might have felt
more comfortable than many others would representing
themselves.142 And in all three studies, the stakes involved were
minimal, meaning their results might not be generalizable to criminal
prosecutions and similar types of disputes.143 Finally, all three
attempt to reproduce the richness of variety and detail that exist in the
courtroom and elsewhere in the legal process. Therefore, our settings do
not—and do not attempt to—represent in any complete way the settings to
which applications can be made. Nor do our subjects faithfully represent
the personae of the courtroom. With few exceptions, we have studied
university students—from the undergraduate college and the law school.”)
145 Barton Poulson, A Third Voice: A Review of Empirical Research on
the Psychological Outcomes of Restorative Justice, 2003 UTAH L. REV. 167, 179-80
(table 1).
146 Id. at 181-93 (tables 2-9).
Id. at 179-93 (tables 1-9). Many of the studies described in this
147
152 Id.
153 LIND & TYLER, supra note 114, at 114.
154 THIBAUT & WALKER, supra note 113, at ch. 5.
155As Lind and Walker point out, “[o]ne interpretation of the results
of this study might be that the inquisitorial procedure leads to better
information gathering and presentation.” LIND & WALKER, supra note 114, at
25.
156Blair H. Sheppard & Neil Vidmar, Adversary Pretrial Procedures
and Testimonial Evidence: effects of Laywer’s Role and Machiavellianism, 39 J.
PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 320 (1980).
157 Id. at 329.
158 Id.
Due Process in Juvenile Justice 36
159Neil Vidmar & N.M. Laird, Adversary Social Roles: Their Effects on
Witnesses’ Communicationof Evidence and the Assessment of Adjudicators, 44 J.
PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 888 (1983). It should be noted, however, that
this study did not involve a witness testifying for the other side, which
might have reduced the biasing effect.
160 Richard A. Rosen, Disciplinary Sanctions Against Prosecutors for
Brady Violations, 65 N.C. L.REV. 693, 697-703, 720-30 (1987) (cataloguing
scores of instances in which prosecutors failed to turn over exculpatory
evidence as required by Brady v. Maryland, but only nine cases in which
discipline was considered and only two which resulted in serious sanction).
161One judge is particularly adamant in making this claim. HAROLD
J. ROTHWAX, GUILTY: THE COLLAPSE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE 141 (1995) (“Given
the probability that the defendant is guilty, the defense attorney knows that
the defendant will win only if counsel is successful in preventing the truth
from being disclosed--or, failing that, misleading the jury once it is
disclosed. So, when the defendant is guilty, the defense attorney's role is to
prevent, distort, and mislead.”).
162Mirjan Damaska, Presentation of Evidence and Factfinding Precision,
123 U. PA.L. REV. 1083, 1093 n. 22 (1975) (Under an adversary model, “the
adversaries are often reluctant to exchange information about the evidence
Due Process in Juvenile Justice 37
C. Efficiency
Research providing statistical information is likely to have its
most conspicuous impact in connection with this third prong of the
Mathews test. The costs of certain procedures, both in terms of direct
expenditures on the process and in terms of the monies thereby
diverted from other parts of the system is, in theory at least, more
quantifiable than either subjective or objective justice. Social science
can therefore make contributions here as well.
Unfortunately, to date, there appear to be no studies directly
comparing the costs of inquisitorial, adversarial, and hybrid
procedures in a given legal setting. But the Supreme Court’s
assumption, in cases like Mathews and Parham, that adversarial
procedures are more expensive is not unreasonable, especially if such
procedures include the jury trial. Indeed, it may be because of its
expense that America’s adversarial process is rarely used,165 and
instead relies primarily on plea bargaining, which is itself
inquisitorial in nature.166
as well. See Marcus Dirk Dubber, American Plea Bargaining, German Lay
Judges, and the Crisis of Criminal Procedure, 49 STAN. L. REV. 547, 558-81
(1997)(explaining inefficiencies of German criminal procedure).
167 See Stephanos Bibas, Brady v. Maryland: From Adversarial
Gamesmanship Toward the Search for Innocence?, in CRIMINAL PROCEDURE
STORIES (Carol Steiker, ed. 2005)(“Appointed defense counsel are often
chronically underfunded, overworked, and of uneven competence. . . . Thus,
defendants would . . . prefer a quasi-inquisitorial system, with a neutral
magistrate who is charged with digging up the truth.”).
Due Process in Juvenile Justice 39
VI. Conclusion
Justice Fortas was correct when he proclaimed that juvenile
offenders prior to the Kent decision experienced the worst of both
worlds, neither adequate due process protection nor effective
rehabilitation. For several decades juvenile justice reforms,
instigated by lawyers and assisted by advocacy-oriented social
scientists, sought to fix the juvenile justice system by focusing on
providing children with adult procedural “safeguards.” The
reformers’ hope was that children would at least get the best of one
world: adult criminal due process protections. As a result, children
now have adult-like procedural safeguards.
We have seen, however, that these modern procedural
reforms rest on the misguided assumption that adult criminal
procedures necessarily provide the ultimate in due process