The role of juvenile courts in the United States has evolved significantly since they were first established in 1899. Initially, these courts focused on rehabilitation and some legal protections, but as time passed new legislation gave children access to due process, as well as greater penalties for serious offenses.
As the juvenile justice landscape has changed, so has the recognition that children must be competent to stand trial in juvenile court. All but one state — Oklahoma — has acknowledged this right. In 1989, the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals — in a case involving juvenile "G.J.I." — held that Oklahoma's competency statute was not applicable to juvenile proceedings, saying that it was "neither appropriate nor necessary" that a child understand a case against him or her since the system was allegedly focused on treatment, not punishment. Research journals and other publications have long criticized Oklahoma as the lone outlier in rejecting this procedural due process right.
Fast-forward 26 years and Oklahoma is now in line with the rest of the country — and is in fact going even further with its protections. The state's new law may not have captured the public's or media's attention, but it is important and long overdue for children in delinquency proceedings who do not have sufficient understanding of the process, and neither realize the importance of having an attorney to assist them nor understand the consequences of their decisions.
Harsher laws for children
Nationwide, new laws have led to harsher penalties, longer periods of probation or treatment in locked facilities for children who commit such crimes as theft, burglary and possession of substances. Such children are also more likely to be transferred from juvenile court to the adult system. In addition, concerns with confidentiality have waned, and protections that once prevented the release of juvenile records have eroded to comply with media demands for release in the interest of purported public safety concerns. A juvenile's record may also be used to enhance punishment if that juvenile later becomes involved in the adult system or to prevent an individual from joining the military. Accordingly, it is important for states to make sure juveniles have some understanding of the process and are able to communicate with their counsel why they might not be guilty as charged. Just like adults, children may be incompetent due to mental illness or intellectual disability, but unlike adults they may also be victims of developmental immaturity, even though not all states include developmental immaturity as a ground for incompetency.
A better law in Oklahoma
Oklahoma is now ahead of the curve for progressive change in this area of the law, having inserted "developmental immaturity" as one of the grounds for a finding of juvenile incompetency. Under the Oklahoma law, credentialed forensic evaluators will provide these juvenile competency assessments to the courts. Service professionals will provide remediation to improve juveniles' capacity to return to court, participate meaningfully in proceedings and make informed decisions about their cases.
However, no consensus exists on what programming methods constitute evidence-based treatment. Therefore, research is needed to advise state agencies as to what programming will work best for treatment to competence. Psychologists also have much to offer policymakers by surveying courts' and attorneys' satisfaction with the process and evaluation quality as has been studied in adult competency (see LaFortune & Nicholson, 1995).
Oklahoma is now poised to provide these services, offering children competency to remediation. We can only wonder how juvenile G.J.I.'s life might have been different had this law been available in 1989.
“Judicial Notebook” is a project of APA Div. 9 (Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues).
