In re Gault

SCOTUSCase
Litigants=In re Gault
ArgueDate=December 16
ArgueYear=1966
DecideDate=May 15
DecideYear=1967
FullName=In re Gault et al.
USVol=387
USPage=1
Citation=
Prior=Appeal from the Supreme Court of Arizona
Subsequent=
Holding=Juveniles tried for crimes in delinquency proceedings should have the right of due process protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.
SCOTUS=1965-1967
Majority=Fortas
JoinMajority=Warren, Douglas, Clark, Brennan
Concurrence=Black
JoinConcurrence=
Concurrence2=White
JoinConcurrence2=
Concurrence/Dissent=Harlan
JoinConcurrence/Dissent=
Dissent=Stewart
JoinDissent=
Dissent2=
JoinDissent2=
LawsApplied=U.S. Const. Amend. XIV

"In re Gault", 387 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision which established that under the Fourteenth Amendment, juveniles accused of crimes in a delinquency proceeding must be accorded many of the same due process rights as adults such as the right to timely notification of charges, the right to confront witnesses, the right against self-incrimination, and the right to counsel. The court's opinion was written by Justice Abe Fortas, a noted proponent of children's rights.

Case background

On the morning of 8 June 1964, the sheriff of Gila County, Arizona, took fifteen-year-old Jerry Gault into custody — without notifying Gault's parents — after a neighbor, one Mrs. Cook, complained of receiving a "lewd or indecent" telephone call. [ [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#4 387 U.S. 1, 4] . Justice Fortas noted that "for purposes of this opinion" it was sufficient "to say that the remarks or questions put to her were of the irritatingly offensive, adolescent, sex variety".] After returning home from work that evening to find her son missing, Gault's mother eventually located him at the county Children's Detention Home but was not permitted to take him home. [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#5 387 U.S. 1, 5] .]

According to Gault, it was his friend Ronald Lewis who made the call from the Gault family's trailer in Globe. Gault claims that Lewis had asked to use his telephone while the former was getting ready for work. Then — not yet knowing to whom Lewis was speaking — Gault relates, “I heard him, ahem, using some pretty vulgar language … so I — all I did was walk out, took the phone off him, hung it up, and told him — I says, ‘Hey, there's the door. Get out.’”Gerald Gault, in National Constitution Center, " [http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/NCCPrograms/~5/209900454/in_re_gault64.mp3 Children under the Constitution] " panel discussion, 7 November 2007.]

Judge McGhee of the Gila County Superior Court, acting in his secondary capacity of juvenile court judge, [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#f1 387 U.S. 1, 5, n. 1] .] presided over Gault's preliminary hearing the next morning — which he ended by saying he would "think about it" — and Gault remained in custody for several more days until being released without explanation. On Gault's release, his mother received a note from the superintendent of the Detention Home informing her that "Judge McGHEE has set Monday June 15, 1964 at 11:00 A. M. as the date and time for further Hearings on Gerald's delinquency"; this was the family's only notification of that hearing. [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#6 387 U.S. 1, 6] .] At the 15 June hearing, Judge McGhee found "that said minor is a delinquent child, and that said minor is of the age of 15 years", ordering him confined at the State Industrial School "for the period of his minority [that is, until 21] , unless sooner discharged by due process of law." The charge listed in the report prepared by the county probation officers was "Lewd Phone Calls". [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#7 387 U.S. 1, 7-8] .]

Gault's accuser, the neighbor woman Cook, was not present at either hearing, Judge McGhee claiming "she didn't have to be present". [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#7 387 U.S. 1, 7] .] Indeed, more than forty years later, Gault lamented “I "still" don’t know what that lady looks like”.

With no witnesses having being sworn and the court making no transcript of either hearing, those present later disagreed about what had gone on during the June 1964 hearings; in particular, Gault's parents in later sworn testimony contested McGhee's claim that the teenager had admitted in court to making any of the alleged lewd statements.

Arizona law at the time permitted no appeal in juvenile cases, so Gault's parents petitioned the Arizona Supreme Court for a writ habeas corpus to obtain their son's release, the Supreme Court referring the case back to McGhee's own Superior Court for hearing. There, on 17 August, "McGhee was vigorously cross-examined as to the basis for his actions." [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#8 387 U.S. 1, 8] .] He testified:

Well, there is a I think it amounts to disturbing the peace. I can't give you the section, but I can tell you the law, that when one person uses lewd language in the presence of another person, that it can amount to and I consider that when a person makes it over the phone, that it is considered in the presence, I might be wrong, that is one section. The other section upon which I consider the boy delinquent is Section 8-201, Subsection (d), habitually involved in immoral matters. [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#f5 387 U.S. 1, 8, n. 5] .]

The first law McGhee mentioned was Arizona Revised Statutes (ARS) § 13-377, which made a misdemeanor of using "vulgar, abusive or obscene language" while "in the presence or hearing of any woman or child". Violating this law, then, would meet the ARS § 8-201(6)(a) criterion for classification as a "delinquent child", i.e., "A child who has violated a law of the state or an ordinance or regulation of a political subdivision thereof". [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#f6 387 U.S. 1, 9, n. 6] .] The alternate criterion McGhee cited was that of ARS § 8-201(6)(d): "A child who habitually so deports himself as to injure or endanger the morals or health of himself or others." In other words, McGhee found Gault delinquent for (1) on one occasion using obscene language on the telephone with a woman and (2) being "habitually" dangerous. The evidence for the latter, according to McGhee's testimony, was that (a) two years earlier there had been a vague report, which the court had not acted upon due to (in McGhee's words) a "lack of material foundation", concerning the theft of a baseball glove; and (b) Gault's admission that in the past he had made telephone calls the judge described as "silly calls, or funny calls, or something like that". [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#9 387 U.S. 1, 9] .] On this basis, Judge McGhee ordered the teenager to serve six years in juvenile detention.

A conviction in criminal court for violation of ARS § 13-377 carried, at the time, a maximum prison sentence of two months, accompanied by a fine of $5 to $50.

After McGhee's Gila County Superior Court dismissed the habeas corpus writ, the Gaults appealed, [Note that the Gaults could not appeal the Juvenile Court's finding of delinquency; they were at this point appealing the Superior Court's dismissal of the habeas corpus writ.] and the case went to the state Supreme Court (99 Ariz. 181 (1965)). The bases of the appeal were:

# the Arizona Juvenile Code was unconstitutional because it (a) did not require that either the accused or his parents be notified of the specific charges against him; (b) did not require that the parents be given proper notice of hearings; and (c) allowed no appeal; and
# the Gila County Juvenile Court's actions constituted a denial of due process because of (a) the lack of notification either of the charges against Gault or of the hearings; (b) the court's failure to inform the Gaults of their right to counsel, right to confront an accuser, and right to remain silent; (c) the admission of "unsworn hearsay testimony"; and (d) the lack of any records of the proceedings. [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#10 387 U.S. 1, 10] .]

The Arizona Supreme Court acknowledged that the constitutionality of the Juvenile Court proceedings required adherence to due process, [http://laws.findlaw.com/us/387/1.html#12 387 U.S. 1, 12] .] but, in affirming the lower court's dismissal of the habeas corpus writ, found that the Arizona Juvenile Code in general and the Gault proceedings in specific did not violate due process.

Decision

In an 8-1 decision the Supreme Court ruled that Gault’s commitment to the State Industrial School "was a clear violation of his 14th Amendment due process rights, since he had been denied the right to legal counsel, had not been formally notified of the charges against him, had not been informed of his right against self-incrimination (remain silent), had no opportunity to confront his accusers and had been given no right to appeal his sentence to a higher court."(this quote is incorrect, it does not appear in the opinion) Justice Potter Stewart was the sole dissenter. He argued that the purpose of juvenile court was correction, not punishment, and the constitutional procedural safeguards for criminal trials should not apply to such juvenile trials.

References

ee also

*List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 387

External links

* [http://www.oyez.org/cases/1960-1969/1966/1966_116/argument/116_19661216-argument.mp3 Oral arguments] on Oyez.org
* National Constitution Center, " [http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/NCCPrograms/~5/209900454/in_re_gault64.mp3 Children under the Constitution] " panel discussion, 7 November 2007.