No Matter How Loud I Shout

by Edward Humes

  CHAPTER 3

  1. The focus of many, if not most, recent attempts to reform the juvenile justice system throughout the nation has revolved around making it easier to try kids as adults—a throwback to the days before juvenile court was even conceived, and a direct result of the burgeoning violent crime committed by kids, which the juvenile justice system seems ill equipped to handle. Thanks in part to Ronald Duncan’s case, California changed state law so that that kids fourteen and older charged with serious and violent crimes could be shifted to adult court at prosecutors’ behest. The law was passed in 1994 and took effect January 1, 1995. By the beginning of 1995, only one state in the nation—Hawaii—still tried all children under sixteen as juveniles.

  2. Many studies of juvenile offenders have found common threads in the backgrounds of kids who commit crimes, and these threads tend to be the ones that common sense dictates should be there. The Probation Department’s Sixteen Percent study, for example, found that repeat offenders more often tend to come from homes in which only one parent is present (in many cases, the father is never present in the home); from homes where child abuse and/or substance abuse is a problem; and where school attendance and performance is not a priority. Poverty is also a common factor, though not as high on the list. Kids from such homes are considered to be “at risk,” meaning they should get increased attention from the system. Often, though, such children are low priorities for the system—until they commit serious crimes.

  The importance of having supportive, nonabusive parents in lowering the risk of delinquent and criminal behavior was demonstrated by a fascinating and unusual study conducted by the High/Scope Educational Research Foundation in Michigan over a period of decades beginning in the 1960s (the results of which were reported in the New York Times on November 30, 1994). Two groups of toddlers were chosen at random from a poor neighborhood; in one group, the children were sent to a high-quality preschool program, and their parents attended parenting and violence-prevention classes. The control group received neither service. The children were reinterviewed at age twenty-seven. Researchers found that the group that received no preschool and no parenting classes was five times more likely to have serious arrest records.

  The full results:

  Preschool/Parenting

  No Preschool/No Parenting

  Five or more arrests

  7%

  35%

  Had received welfare

  59%

  80%

  Had out-of-wedlock births

  57%

  83%

  Income over $24,000

  29%

  7%

  High school grad

  71%

  54%

  Own a home

  36%

  13%

  3. Plea bargains did not generally exist in the juvenile justice system until the Supreme Court’s Gault decision that transformed Juvenile into a mirror image of adult court, where plea bargaining has long served as vital lubrication of the system. In the past, Juvenile Court sentences were determined solely by the judge’s estimation of what a child needed. Now, the sentence is determined in large part by agreements between defense attorneys and prosecutors, over which judges have little or no control.

  CHAPTER 4

  1. Geri Vance provided this account of his childhood, in his writings and in interviews with the author. Court records confirm that he had a chaotic childhood, the fact that his mother was incarcerated for a time, and that he had been removed from his home. Specific details of his upbringing are based solely on Geri’s recollections. The author could not locate either of his parents in order to obtain their account of events.

  2. In the first five months of 1994, postponements were granted in more than fifteen thousand hearings in Juvenile Court. For 11 percent of these, the reason for the delay cited in the court’s minute entries was “FTA”—failure to appear by the juvenile.

  3. In an effort to differentiate juvenile proceedings from adult criminal hearings, the founders of the juvenile justice system in California and around the nation tried to create a different series of terms, supposedly to avoid the stigmatizing impact of words such as “defendant,” “indictment,” “conviction”—even the phrase “guilty as charged” is, technically, not supposed to be used. Using the term “delinquent” rather than “criminal” was supposed to eliminate most of the stigma; instead, the new term developed a stigma just as serious as, and virtually synonymous with, the one it replaced. Still, the system clings to its alternative terminology. Instead of the “defendant,” the juvenile is referred to as a “minor.” Instead of the DA filing criminal charges, prosecutors file a “delinquency petition.” Instead of a “bail hearing,” juveniles get a “detention hearing.” Instead of a “preliminary hearing” to determine probable cause, juveniles get a “William M.” or an “Edsel P.” hearing—names drawn from California court cases decided on appeal (William M. and Edsel P. are the names of minors, their last names reduced to initials in appellate pleadings to protect the confidentiality granted most juveniles, again to avoid stigma). Instead of pronouncing the child guilty, a judge finds “the petition is sustained.” Instead of sentencing the child, a “disposition” is imposed.

  The most important distinction is that juvenile offenses are part of the civil legal code, not the criminal code. This distinction is confused somewhat, however, because in California, like most states, the juvenile civil code is a mirror image of the adult penal statutes. As the Hoover Commission report, The Juvenile Crime Challenge (1994) notes here, “Originally created to be a swift, confidential mechanism for getting youths treatment and services, the juvenile courts operate today much like adult criminal courts because of changes in law, court rulings and public attitudes.”

  In the wake of burgeoning serious juvenile crime and court decisions granting more rights to children, new laws have been passed that alter the original juvenile codes, shifting the emphasis away from rehabilitation and toward punishment and the protection of society, further blurring the distinctions between juvenile and adult systems. In contemporary juvenile courts, for example, children charged with serious and violent crimes are no longer entitled to confidentiality—the hearings are open to press and public—and many of these children can be transferred to adult court. As such, the alternative terminology used in the juvenile system is less an effective tool to avoid stigma, and more a vestigial organ, like an appendix, with no useful function. System insiders and the kids themselves view the terminology as little more than a lexicon of euphemisms for proceedings that no longer differ substantially from adult criminal matters. And in court, their usage has gradually relaxed—the attorneys talk of guilty pleas, the prosecutors of charges, the judges sometimes slip and sentence a child instead of disposing of him.

  CHAPTER 5

  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.”

  CHAPTER 6

  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.

  CHAPTER 7

  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 Cali
fornia 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.”

  CHAPTER 8

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

  CHAPTER 9

  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.