The Constitutional Rights of Children: In Re Gault and Juvenile Justice (Landmark Law Cases & American Society) - Softcover

David S. Tanenhaus (author)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0700625046 ISBN 13: 9780700625048

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 2017

Synopsis

This new edition upon the 50th anniversary of In re Gault includes expanded coverage of the Roberts Court’s juvenile justice decisions including Miller v. Alabama; explains how disregard for children’s 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 accuser’s testimony, and sentenced to six years in a juvenile “boot camp”―for 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 Gault’s behalf. Led by Norman Dorsen, the ACLU ultimately took Gault’s case to the Supreme Court and in 1967 won a landmark decision authored by Justice Abe Fortas. Widely celebrated as the most important children’s 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 Amendment’s due process protections into the administration of the nation’s juvenile courts.

About this title

About the Author

David S. Tanenhaus is professor of history and James E. Rogers Professor of History and Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. He is author of Juvenile Justice in the Making.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0700625046
• ISBN 13: 9780700625048
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 172