The Courts: Justice for Juveniles

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Nothing has so baffled judges through the ages as how to handle children accused of crime. English common law absolved those under seven but often gave older children the same rap as adults. One eight-year-old was thus hanged for burning a barn, reports Blackstone's Commentaries; a 13-year-old servant girl was burned for killing her mistress. Such shockers moved Illinois in 1899 to establish the first U.S. juvenile court, on the humane theory that government must "protect" children whose parents fail them, rehabilitating rather than punishing.

No, 13,459. Juvenile courts now exist in every state. In three-quarters of the states they handle all offenders under 18. Yet today they face unprecedented criticism for everything from coddling to cruelty. All too often, protectiveness has made them so unjudicial that they are accused of dispensing injustice.

Anti-coddlers roast juvenile courts by reciting the statistic that persons under 25 now account for one-third of all city arrests for serious crimes. In a random poll of visitors to the New York World's Fair, the Daily News asked, "Should juvenile offenders involved in serious crimes be shielded from publicity?" The poll standing last week: Yes, 8,063; No, 13,459. Such reaction is fueled by the action of a New York City juvenile court last month after two juveniles drenched a six-year-old boy in lighter fluid and set him afire for "kicks." As always, the court refused not only to reveal their names but even to say what it did with them.

In, 100,000. Far sharper is the criticism of many lawyers and judges that juvenile courts are "protecting" delinquents right out of their basic constitutional rights. Because juvenile proceedings are said to be "noncriminal," delinquents in many states have been regularly deprived of bail, lawyers, juries, the right to exclude hearsay evidence, and the right to public trial.

Errant children cannot be committed as juvenile delinquents beyond the age of 21. Yet they can be held for weeks or months without a hearing. According to Washington, D.C.'s Judge Orman Ketcham, U.S. county jails hold as many as 100,000 children per year. Moreover, because they can be held to 21, juveniles often get longer sentences than adults do for the same offense.

Solomon to 225,000. No one knows all this better than the country's 3,000 juvenile court judges, a quarter of them non-lawyers and most of them overworked. In 1957, Washington's Judge Ketcham found himself the low-paid Solomon in sole charge of the city's 225,000 juvenile cases, plus all of its paternity suits and nonsupport cases. By contrast, 31 other judges handled the city's 550,000 adult cases. "I had to hear 197 cases in my first three days of court," recalls Ketcham. "I don't want that to happen again to anyone."

President-elect of the National Council of Juvenile Court Judges, Judge Ketcham is a blunt advocate of defense lawyers in juvenile courts. Right now, lawyers represent less than 10% of juvenile delinquents in the country's 75 largest cities, where 69% of juvenile crime is concentrated.