The Constitutional Rights of Children

This new edition upon the 50th anniversary of In re Gault includes expanded coverage of the Roberts Courts juvenile justice decisions including Miller v. Alabama; explains how disregard for childrens constitutional rights led to the Kids for Cash scandal in Pennsylvania; new legal developments in the Gault case; and, updates the bibliography and chronology. When fifteen-year-old Gerald Gault of Globe, Arizona, allegedly made an obscene phone call to a neighbor, he was arrested by the local police, tried in a proceeding that did not require his accusers testimony, and sentenced to six years in a juvenile boot campfor an offense that would have cost an adult only two months. Even in a nation fed up with juvenile delinquency, that sentence seemed excessive and inspired a spirited defense on Gaults behalf. Led by Norman Dorsen, the ACLU ultimately took Gaults case to the Supreme Court and in 1967 won a landmark decision authored by Justice Abe Fortas. Widely celebrated as the most important childrens rights case of the twentieth century, In re Gault affirmed that children have some of the same rights as adults and formally incorporated the Fourteenth Amendments due process protections into the administration of the nations juvenile courts.