Friday marks the 48th anniversary of In re Gault, a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1967 that juveniles had the right to all the same protections under the law that adult offenders did, like being notified of the charges against them, and being assigned their own attorneys. In the years since, however, juvenile justice has occasionally fallen behind the adult system, and achieved reforms at a slower pace.
Shackling in the courtroom is one such example. The Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that to shackle adult defendants during the sentencing portion of their trials would be to deny them due process, unless there was a specific reason for restraints. The Court’s majority opinion held that the shackles created a prejudicial visual image for the judge and jury—suggesting that the defendant was a dangerous, and even unpredictable, criminal—which could potentially sway them to mete out harsher punishments.
The defendant in that Supreme Court case, Carman Deck, was an adult who had been convicted of robbing and then murdering an elderly couple. If leg-braces weren’t appropriate for him, are they a good idea for children? The image of children in chains is jarring. Consider this Associated Press news photo from 2007 of a 10-year-old standing between his mother and his lawyer in a courtroom in Florida, dressed in a tiny white jumpsuit, orange sneakers, a waist restraint, and ankle cuffs.
[For more of this story, written by Lauren Kirchner, go to http://www.psmag.com/politics-...les-in-the-courtroom]
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