GAULT, IN RE
Originally, juvenile court was a place for the informal resolution of a broad range of matters
concerning children. The hearings were not
adversarial. Instead, they focused on the juve-
nile’s best interests. A juvenile was brought to
the juvenile court, the prosecution presented
evidence, the juvenile and other witnesses gave
testimony, and the juvenile court judge made a
decision based on the perceived best interests of
the juvenile.
In the same spirit of informality, juvenile
courts provided fewer procedural protections
than did adult courts. Juveniles did not have the
right to a court-appointed attorney or to notice
of charges of criminal behavior. They did not
have the right to confront accusers and cross-
examine witnesses. They did not have the right
to a written record of the proceedings or to
appeal the juvenile court judgment.
The problem with this lack of procedural
protections was that a juvenile risked losing his or
her liberty for several years. The best interests of
the child usually involved placement in a secure
reformatory or some other secure facility until
the age of eighteen or, in some states, twenty-one.
This amounted to a deprivation of liberty similar
to that resulting from a prison sentence.
In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court issued a
decision that would change dramatically the
character of juvenile courts. In In re Gault, 387
U.S. 1, 87 S. Ct. 1428, 18 L. Ed. 2d 527, fifteen-
year-old Gerald Gault was committed to a
reform school until age twenty-one for allegedly
making an obscene phone call to a neighbor.
Gault had been found delinquent without
receiving notice of the charges or the assistance
of an attorney. In addition, Gault had been
interviewed by a PROBATION officer without
having an attorney present, and the statements
made in this interview were submitted as proof
that Gault had made the obscene phone call.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Gault’s
commitment to the reformatory constituted a
deprivation of liberty. This meant that Gault
should have been provided with most of the
procedural protections afforded to adults in
criminal prosecutions. According to the Court
in Gault, “[U]nbridled discretion, however
benevolently motivated, is frequently a poor
substitute for principle and procedure.”
The purpose of the Gault decision was to
make juvenile proceedings more fair to the juve-
nile. The decision accomplished this, but it also
made juvenile proceedings more adversarial.
With the increased procedural protections, juve-
niles became more capable of resisting commit-
ment to secure reformatories, and it became
more difficult for the juvenile courts summarily
to obtain control over juveniles.
The adversarial tenor in contemporary juve-
nile courts is thus an unfortunate by-product of
the decision in Gault. Prosecutors must now
work harder to persuade the juvenile court to
find in favor of the state so that the system may
take control of the juvenile. They must shift the
focus of juvenile court proceedings away from
the needs of the juvenile and onto the offense.
This shifted focus is similar to the focus of pro-
ceedings in adult criminal court, and it amounts
to a reversal of the traditional emphasis in juve-
