No Matter How Loud I Shout (64 page)

1
. Shabby treatment of witnesses is endemic in the juvenile system. The Hoover Commission report concludes: “The victim has no role in the courtroom and the confidentiality that cloaks the juvenile in large part keeps the victim in the dark about the case as it proceeds. The result, according to victims' rights organizations, is that citizens who are injured or who suffer damages from the juvenile are ‘re-injured' by the system and are denied a feeling of resolution. An opportunity is also lost to confront the juvenile with the real-life impact of his actions . . . In adult criminal cases they [victims] may provide input during sentencing hearings—not an option that is open to victims of juvenile crime” (
The Juvenile Crime Challenge
, 1994, p. 76).

2
. The California legislature recently changed state law so graffiti on public property such as highway overpasses would be presumed to have been done without permission, eliminating the need to bring highway department officials into court to testify to the obvious. However, prosecutors decried this new law as a half-measure; the legislature ignored their request that the law be changed so that
private
property owners—the only ones who are at risk for retaliation should they testify—be spared from having to come to court to prove that gang graffiti was done without permission.

3
. California Welfare and Institutions Code Section 707b states that children sixteen or older who commit one of the following crimes are presumed to be unfit to be tried as a juvenile: murder, arson of an inhabited building, armed robbery, rape by force or threat of harm, sodomy by force or threat of harm, lewd acts with children under fourteen, oral copulation by force or threat of harm, genital or anal penetration by a foreign object, kidnapping for ransom, kidnapping for purpose of robbery, kidnapping with bodily harm, assault with intent to murder or attempted murder, assault with a firearm, assault by any means of force intended to cause great bodily harm, discharge of a firearm into an inhabited or occupied building, first-degree burglaries and violent crimes committed against disabled and senior citizens, any felony committed with the use of a gun, any felony in which the minor personally uses a variety of exotic weapons, including explosives, nunchucks, billy clubs, dirks and daggers and dart guns, witness intimidation, influencing testimony, selling a half ounce or more of PCP and several other dangerous depressant drugs (but not cocaine, methamphetamine, or heroin), any violent felony committed by a street gang member, escape from any juvenile facility when great bodily harm is inflicted, torture, and aggravated mayhem. (A year after this case was resolved, the law was changed to lower the fitness age to fourteen and over for a shorter list of major crimes.)

4
. Section 707 of the California Welfare and Institutions Code governs fitness hearings for juveniles (called waiver hearings or amenability hearings in other states). The original statute—now called 707 (a)—presumed all kids
were fit
to be tried as juveniles. It allowed judges to ship kids over sixteen to adult court if they were found to be unfit under one or more of the five factors—criminal sophistication, potential for rehabilitation, previous delinquent history, success of previous attempts at rehabilitation, and the gravity of the offense. The question judges had to resolve was whether or not kids were amenable to treatment as juveniles. Under this test, most children subjected to fitness hearings were retained in juvenile court.

In 1982, the California legislature—concerned that it was too difficult to try juveniles as adults—created 707 (b) and (c), which stated that juveniles over sixteen accused of serious, violent felonies were presumed to be
unfit
to be tried as juveniles, exactly the opposite of 707 (a). Failure on any one of the five factors meant transfer to adult court. For judges to find kids fit, they have to cite specific evidence that overturns the presumption of unfitness for each of the five factors. Under this standard, most kids subjected to fitness hearings are transferred to adult court—which was the legislature's intention. Under 707 (a), now rarely used, the judge has broad discretion in making this call. Under 707 (b) and (c), the primary decision-maker in the process is the district attorney, who makes the call at the outset on whether or not to file a fitness motion.

5
. “There is little doubt that the ruling was in error and not supported by the evidence,” the DA's appellate section later wrote in a memo, stating further that a proper appeal would be virtually guaranteed to overturn the decision. Records from other cases at Thurgood Marshall and elsewhere in the system show that appellate courts have consistently overturned similar decisions.

6
. The memo from the DA's appellate division, while finding Dorn's ruling illegal, explains why no appeal could be pursued. “Research indicates that the prosecution is barred by double jeopardy from litigating a minor's fitness and transferring his case to adult court once the minor's petition has been adjudicated. . . . It is crucial that trial deputies make appropriate objections, indicate the intent to seek review and otherwise follow code provisions.”

1
. This figure represents an average, based upon the total number of transfers and the number of days Juvenile Courts are in session. In 1992, the last year for which figures are available, a total of 11,700 children were tried as adults nationwide, according to yearly estimates by the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

2
. In California, the Juvenile Court may be divided into two separate branches, the dependency court, which deals with adoptions, foster children, and abused and neglected children, and the delinquency court, which handles criminal matters and status offenses. Both sections of the court are part of the Superior Court, the principal trial-level court in California. Other jurisdictions—New York, for example—have a single, unified Family Court that handles both types of cases.

3
. This account is based on probation reports that detail George's history, a psychological report by Dr. Michael P. Maloney, filed in both juvenile and adult courts, and on the author's interviews with George Trevino. The author was unable to locate George's aunt for an interview.

4
. The dependency court eventually released full control of George to the aunt and terminated its jurisdiction over George when he was thirteen.

5
. At George's trial in the Norwalk Branch of Los Angeles Superior Court, the prosecution alleged George was a ringleader with Villa; the defense argued he was naïve and had been used by older, hardened criminals. The evidence was unequivocal in showing that a second adult not present at the crime had conceived and planned the robbery, then involved George and Villa.

1
. Judge Dorn later explained to the author, as well as to Deputy District Attorney Peggy Beckstrand, that he would not have objected to the presence of the District Attorney's Office, but that inviting prosecutors would have required him to invite the public defender's staffers as well, and he viewed them as obstructions to his brand of reform. Dorn, however, invited both offices to attend subsequent meetings and to help carry out various reforms he wished to pursue, though the public defender's participation was minimal.

2
. According to
State/Local Juvenile Corrections in California—A Systems Perspective
(California Youth Authority, January 11, 1994), ineffective probation programs like 654 are becoming increasingly predominant: “Currently, large numbers of probationers on county caseloads go essentially unsupervised because available resources are no match for the multitude of cases. Minimum supervision/service and ‘paper' caseloads predominate; and in general even ‘supervised' probationers are rarely seen by a probation officer.”

3
. Repeated efforts to change the law on juvenile gun possession have met with defeat in the California legislature, except for a recent law that makes carrying firearms on school campuses a felony. The failure to make unlawful possession of a firearm by a juvenile a serious offense is at odds with information on the impact firearms have had on juvenile crime. The U.S. Justice Department reports that, in 1976, 59 percent of juvenile homicide offenders killed with a gun; by 1991, the figure was 78 percent.
The department also reports that teen homicides using firearms have quadrupled since 1985.

Meanwhile, a Virginia survey of juvenile inmates found 20 percent reported owning assault rifles, and that youths were more than twice as likely as adults to have carried semiautomatic pistols at crime scenes.

A four-state Justice Department study found that 55 percent of confined juveniles owned a revolver before being locked up, 55 percent owned a semiautomatic handgun, and 51 percent owned a sawed-off shotgun.

A 1993 Harvard University School of Public Health survey of middle and high school youth nationwide, conducted by LH Research, found:

59 percent of students say they can get a gun if they want one.

39 percent know someone killed or wounded by gunfire.

35 percent believe self “somewhat” or “very likely” to die from guns.

15 percent carried a handgun in the last thirty days.

4 percent carried a handgun to school in the last academic year.

9 percent shot a gun at somebody.

13 percent had been seriously threatened with a firearm.

11 percent had been shot at.

A California State Department of Health Services study found that in 1994 a California youth is ten to fifteen times more likely to be murdered by a firearm than his or her counterpart in the 1950s and 1960s.

4
. Dorn is not alone on this point. The confidentiality of Juvenile Court, once sacrosanct, has come under increasing fire from prosecutors, police agencies, victims' rights groups, and many judges, who have come to feel an open system might have more impact and be more responsive to public safety. The juvenile defense bar is fighting hard to preserve confidentiality, but in many jurisdictions, this is proving to be a losing battle. In California, the Little Hoover Commission recently recommended that confidentiality be greatly reduced in the system, opening all trials and sentencings for serious crimes involving kids over fourteen, and curtailing the right of such offenders to later have their records sealed. “The present laws are too broad and allow protective cover for too many youths who later continue a life of crime,” the report states. “[Confidentiality] has weakened the credibility of the entire system.”

1
. The account of this in-chambers meeting is based on the author's interviews with Peggy Beckstrand and Judge Roosevelt Dorn.

1
. This account of the DAs' meeting is based on the author's interviews with Peggy Beckstrand and Jim Hickey.

2
. This is not a new proposal, nor is it one with narrow ideological appeal. No less staunch a child advocate than U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno proposed a similar
restructuring of the juvenile system when she was State Attorney for Dade County, Florida, where the Miami juvenile system was just as swamped as LA's. She wanted a juvenile system that dealt intensively with kids fourteen and under, where the most good could be done in altering a kid's descent into crime. Every older juvenile would go to a specially designed Youthful Offenders Unit of the adult court, where adult laws and punishments applied, though they would be coupled with special programs and intensive supervision designed for older delinquents. It was not an ideal solution, but given limited resources and the backwards priorities now rampant in the juvenile system, it provided the best possible solution to an intractable problem, Reno maintained. The proposal, deemed too radical at the time, has never been enacted.

Critics suggest a possible problem with this two-tiered approach is that it does little to prevent juvenile crime in the first place—it just shifts resources and punishments around the criminal justice system, and keeps juvenile criminals locked up longer with fewer efforts to rehabilitate them. There is no evidence that harsher sentences have decreased juvenile crime. Indeed, the crime rate among older juveniles has continued to soar even after laws were passed that place many of them in adult court.

3
. In a speech before the U.S. Senate in 1992, Sen. John Glenn of Ohio cited a survey that listed the top school problems listed by principals in 1940: talking out of turn; chewing gum and making a noise; running in halls; cutting in line; dress code infractions; littering. In 1980, a similar survey of principals found their major concerns had shifted: drug abuse, alcohol abuse, pregnancy, suicide, rape, robbery, assault.

4
. According to juvenile delinquency expert Peter W. Greenwood of the RAND Corporation, in testimony before California's Little Hoover Commission, the justice system has yet to find a satisfactory middle ground in dealing with child criminals. In his February 28, 1994, testimony, Greenwood said:

“Many juvenile killings appear to take place without any rational cause or purpose. It is this latter characteristic that has caused some observers to question the whole concept of rehabilitation upon which the juvenile justice system is presumably based. Another concern expressed by many observers is that, in the name of rehabilitation or protecting the interests of the minor, hardened young criminals are let off much more leniently than would be the case if they were treated as adults. . . . The most difficult aspect of any examination of the juvenile justice system is maintaining the perspective that the subjects being dealt with are both children and criminals at the same time, with all the limitations and vulnerabilities which the first label implies and all of the problems and risks implied by the second. Reconciling these competing demands is the most difficult task confronted by juvenile justice policy makers.”