Juvenile Offenders' rights now include the right to a JURY TRIAL!

Any attorney regularly practicing juvenile law and defending the rights of juvenile offenders will certainly agree that juveniles have been deprived of a significant number of fundamental rights afforded to those over the age of 18. While juvenile offenders can be jailed, imprisoned, or even tried as adults, the procedural safeguards generally guranteed by the Constitution and supporting Amendments have not been regularly applied to juveniles being prosecuted through the Kansas Juvenile Justice system.

The Kansas Supreme Court took a major step towards recognition of the rights of juveniles within the Kansas state court system. (No. 96,197) On appeal to the State's highest Court, L.M. maintained that the Sixth Amendment, ensuring a speedy trial by a jury of the accused's peers, should apply to juveniles as well. The issue was last addressed in 1984, when it was then determined that juvenile prosecution did not amount to "criminal prosecution" due to it's focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment. Findlay v. State, 235 Kan. 462, 463-64, 681 P.2d 20 (1984). Since that time, juveniles have not been afforded one of the most substantial trial rights available to the accused, the right to trial by jury.

In reversing nearly 25 years of precendent, the Kansas Supreme Court, by majority opinion, found that juvenile prosecutions had changed over time. Penalties for juvenile offenders increased significantly over this same period of time, with a "placement matrix" comparable in many ways to the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines which has applied to adults in Kansas since their adoption in 1993. L.M.'s juvenile adjudications were reversed and his case was remanded to juvenile district court for trial by jury.