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Juvenile Court Transfer Laws Essay

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Typically, when a judge decides to waive the protective rights the juvenile court has on a youthful offender it is for more serious crimes. This can also be applied to minors who have been in and out of the juvenile justice system. Fagan (2008) states that in some instances, transfer decisions made by juvenile courts to try juveniles in adult criminal court was primarily based on the severity of the offense. Some juvenile cases depending upon the severity or nature of the offense are transferred to adult criminal court through a process called a “wavier”. Essentially, a judicial waiver to criminal is the most common transfer mechanism according to Fagan. In his research, Fagan (2008) states that forty-seven states and the District of Columbia distribute discretion to judges of the juvenile justice system to waive certain youth offenders to criminal court. “In 1966, in Kent v. U. S. the Supreme Court articulated both procedural and substantive …show more content…

The first is a judicial wavier, Fagan (2008) states that a judicial wavier is the most common transfer mechanism, in fact, about forty-seven states including the District of Columbia gives judicial discretion to waive certain juveniles based on a certain criteria. “Judicial waiver criteria and procedures have been redesigned in many states to increase the likelihood of waiver. Some states created a presumption of waiver for specific offenses or offenders, based on age, offense, or prior record.” (Fagan, 2008). The second mechanism that Fagan makes note of is statutory exclusion, which is “a legislative judgment about the future behavior and malleability of excluded youth.”(Fagan, 2008). What this means is that juvenile offenders can basically be reassigned to adult criminal courts if they are either in the juvenile justice system for long term or coming of age or has made the age threshold (which is

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Juvenile transfer laws tend to focus on juveniles who commit serious and violent offenses” (Crime Solutions, n.d.). However, there are at least three common ways to move a juvenile case to adult court: judicial waiver, prosecutorial discretion, and statutory exclusion. Judicial waiver laws - “A judicial waiver occurs when a juvenile court judge transfers a case from juvenile to adult court in order to deny the juvenile the protections that juvenile jurisdictions provide” (Find Law, 2017). Prosecutorial discretion - “Original jurisdiction for certain cases is shared by both criminal and juvenile courts, and the prosecutor has discretion to file such cases in either court” (OJJDP National Report Series,

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