Landmark ruling for juvenile justice-State Supreme Court rules minors are not entitled to jury trial

Knoxville News Sentinel ^ | 9/28/6 | JAMIE SATTERFIELD

[SmithL]

In a groundbreaking ruling that appears to be a reversal of some three decades of legal precedent in Tennessee, the state Supreme Court has ruled that juveniles are not entitled to a jury trial.

State Supreme Court Justice Cornelia A. Clark took just six pages to articulate the court's reasoning. The backdrop for the landmark decision was an aggravated robbery conviction lodged against a then 17-year-old Fulton High School student.

Knox County Assistant Public Defender Bob Edwards, who represented Clinton Burns III in the case, said Wednesday he was disappointed in the high court's decision.

"This is a complete reversal," Edwards said. "It's another erosion of our constitutional protections."

Attorney Wade V. Davies, who represented the Tennessee Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in its backing of a juvenile's right to a jury trial, agreed.

"The TACDL believes the right to a jury trial is the most important constitutional right we have," he said. "Age should not matter."

Interestingly, the state's high court heard arguments in this case in front of a group of high school students who were taking part in the Supreme Court Advancing Legal Education for Students, or SCALES, project.

At issue was whether the Tennessee constitution allows youngsters convicted in the juvenile court system of a felony to have an appeal heard by a jury in the adult court system.

This is distinct from the handling of cases involving juveniles who are ordered to stand trial as adults and are, therefore, entitled under the U.S. Constitution to a trial by jury.

It was 1970 when a Tennessee appellate court first ruled that juvenile criminals were entitled to appeal their convictions to the adult court system and have the case decided by a jury.

A year later, however, the U.S. Supreme Court opined that the U.S. Constitution did not guarantee a jury trial for appealing juveniles. Instead, the nation's high court ruled that juvenile justice was an entirely different concept - with different rules and goals - than the adult system.

Rehabilitation, the court wrote, was at the juvenile justice system's core. Jury trials just complicated things, the justices wrote.

Despite that landmark decision, Tennessee's courts continued to uphold a juvenile's right to a jury trial, with the state Supreme Court in a 1980 decision noting that the state constitution trumped its U.S. counterpart if rights were being handed out rather than taken away.

"A state court cannot under a state constitution restrict the rights of its citizens contrary to the rights granted by the federal constitution, but a state court can grant its citizens broader and more comprehensive rights," the state Supreme Court ruled in that 1980 decision.

Enter Burns 23 years later.

Burns had been booted from Fulton just before a check-cashing business on Broadway was robbed. A clerk later identified Burns as the robber.

Edwards contended that Burns' role as robber was not only improbable, but impossible. The teenager, Edwards argued, would have had less than 15 minutes to decide to rob the place, round up a sidekick and commit the crime.

Burns was convicted in juvenile court. Edwards appealed to Knox County Criminal Court Judge Ray Lee Jenkins and asked for a jury trial. State prosecutors balked, pointing to the U.S. Supreme Court's 1971 decision disallowing that right for juveniles. Jenkins sided with the state and, after a hearing, affirmed Burns' guilt.

Edwards appealed and won the first round before the state Court of Appeals, which cited the decades of decisions by Tennessee courts that appeared to affirm a juvenile's right to a jury trial.

But in its landmark decision issued earlier this week, the state Supreme Court said it had never really backed that 1970 decision granting a juvenile's right to a jury trial. Instead, Clark wrote, the state high court had dodged the issue.

"To date, this court has not squarely addressed this issue," Clark wrote. "This court has, however, referred to (the 1970 decision) with apparent approval in several cases Our careful analysis of this and other cases makes clear that, despite this court's past reluctance to criticize (the 1970 decision) while determining other and distinct issues, we cannot rely on (prior rulings) as precedent for the correct disposition of the question before us today."

In the high court's view, legislators - not the state constitution - created juvenile courts in Tennessee and specifically intended to keep juries out of the picture.

"Should the legislature choose in the future to provide the option to a jury trial during some or all of juvenile proceedings, it may, of course, do so," Clark wrote. "We are not convinced, however, that Tennessee's law of the land clause (in the constitution) mandates jury trials in this context Prior cases holding otherwise are hereby overruled."

[supercat]

I can see no particular constitutional problem with requiring that people who wish to be tried as juveniles accept some conditions in exchange for that. On the other hand, if someone would rather be tried by jury as an adult than by a judge as a juvenile, I see no basis for denying that.

[THEUPMAN]

Jury trials just complicated things, the justices wrote.


ooooooook then ......