On June 8th, 1964 Gerald (“Jerry”) Gault was a 15-year-old boy who was accused of making an obscene telephone call to one of his neighbors, Mrs. Cook. After, Mrs. Cook received that phone call she went to file a complaint. Gault and his friend, Ronald Lewis were arrested and taken to the children’s detention home. When Gault was arrested at the time he was on probation after being in the company of another boy who had stolen a wallet from a women’s purse. When Gault was arrested because of the phone call, his parents wasn’t at home. They were at work. The officer who arrested him didn’t leave no type of notice for them or didn’t make any type of effort to inform them of their son’s arrest. When Gault mother came home from work and noticed her son wasn’t home, she sent out his older brother to go look for him. They had learned that their son was arrested from the family of Ronald Lewis. When his mom, Mrs. Gault had went over to the detention home, she found out that her son’s hearing was scheduled in juvenile court that following day. …show more content…
The petition wasn’t even served on Gault or his parents. They didn’t even see the petition until more than 2 months later, on August 17,1964, the day of Gerald’s habeas corpus hearing. The hearing that was on June 9th was an informal hearing. Mrs. Cook wasn’t even present and there was no type of transcript or record that was made, and there was no one who was sworn in prior to testifying. Gault was being questioned by the judge and there were conflicting accounts as to what, if anything, he admitted. When the hearing was done, Gault was taken back to the Detention Home. He was in there for another two or three days before he was