Delinquent, Without Doubt

JUVENILE COURTS

Delinquent, Without Doubt

"Guilty beyond reasonable doubt." That cornerstone tenet of U.S. criminal justice has safeguarded many an innocent man--but rarely an innocent boy. In most states, whether a child is adjudged delinquent depends on the way the "preponderance of evidence" strikes the judge handling the case. In other words, if the child seems slightly more guilty than not, the judge can order him sent to a training school. The reason : juvenile courts were originally conceived as places where children would be helped, not punished. But the practice has not lived up to the theory. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Gault decision enlarging the constitutional rights of juveniles (TIME, May 26), the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that a juvenile must be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, just like anyone else.

"It would seem," wrote Justice Robert C. Underwood for the court, "that the reasons which caused the Supreme Court to import the constitutional requirements of an adversary criminal trial into delinquency hearings logically require that a finding of delinquency for misconduct, which would be criminal if charged against an adult, is valid only when the acts of delinquency are proved beyond a reasonable doubt." With that, the court ordered a new trial for Robert Urbasek, 13, who had been accused of stabbing to death an eleven-year-old girl two years ago. And this time, he must be proved guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

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