NCJ Number
178646
Journal
Criminal Justice Volume: 12 Issue: 3 Dated: Fall 1997 Pages: 55-57
Date Published
1997
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article examines legal attacks on juvenile transfer reform.
Abstract
There has been a significant trend in recent years to ease the traditional restrictions on trying juveniles in adult courts. As these more punitive approaches have spread, there have been several constitutional attacks on the new legislative schemes in an effort to preserve the primacy of the traditional juvenile transfer process based on the exercise of individualized discretion by juvenile and family court judges. Lawyers have challenged these new strategies by asserting the unconstitutionality of the reform on several grounds: (1) It violates the separation of powers doctrine; (2) It denies equal protection of the law to juveniles in general or to a particular class of juveniles; and (3) It amounts to a denial of due process. Although constitutional challenges to juvenile reforms have been largely unavailing, the article examines each of the three claims.