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U.S. Supreme Court · 1967
387 U.S. 1 (1967)
Held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment applies to juvenile delinquency proceedings that may result in commitment to a state institution. A child facing adjudication is entitled to adequate written notice of the specific charges, the right to counsel (appointed if the family cannot afford one), the privilege against self-incrimination, and the rights of confrontation and cross-examination -- because "the condition of being a boy does not justify a kangaroo court." The Court noted that waiver of the privilege by a child raises special problems, and that where an admission is taken without counsel "the greatest care must be taken" to ensure it was voluntary and "not the product of ignorance of rights or of adolescent fantasy, fright or despair." The holding governs the adjudicatory stage; it does not reach the pre-judicial (arrest/interrogation) or dispositional stages.
Some later courts have distinguished or questioned it — read before relying.
Treatment last confirmed July 18, 2026. Case-wide subsequent treatment; human-set. Not specific to any one passage.
A substantial proportion of juveniles, especially those age 15 and younger, have impairments in adjudicative competence — the capacities to understand legal proceedings, reason about legal decisions, and assist counsel — at rates comparable to adults found incompetent to stand trial; developmental immaturity itself, apart from mental illness, can diminish trial competence.
Juveniles, especially those age 15 and younger, frequently do not adequately comprehend or appreciate the Miranda warnings they waive: as a group they understand the words of the warnings, and the function and significance of the rights to silence and counsel, less well than adults — raising doubt about whether a juvenile's waiver is knowing and intelligent.