Supreme Court: Juveniles Need Lawyers

TRENTON — A local case prompted the state’s top court to decide that juvenile suspects must have a lawyer at their side throughout the criminal justice process.
The Supreme Court’s Wednesday, July 29 decision comes from a case out of Lower Township in which an arrest was made on a 20-year-old male suspect who was charged with sexual assault in 2004. The incidents were alleged to have taken place one summer six or seven year’s earlier when the accused was 13 or 14 years old and the accuser was either six or seven.
The county Prosecutor’s Office investigated the case, obtained a warrant and arrested the accused — referred to in court documents as P.M.P. — on Feb. 20, 2004.
P.M.P. was taken into custody, read his Miranda rights and after he waived those rights, he made a statement admitting the sexual contact with the young girl several years previously.
At trial, the judge granted the defense attorney’s motion to suppress the confession finding that the prosecutor’s filing of a juvenile delinquency complaint was the functional equivalent of an indictment, and therefore, P.M.P. had a Sixth Amendment right to counsel and could not waive that right except in the presence of his attorney.
The Appellate Division reversed that decision saying that the juvenile justice system and the criminal courts are fundamentally different and should not be equated.
In the end, the Supreme Court sided with the trial court finding it properly suppressed P.M.P.’s statement. In a 5-2 decision, the Court found that under the Code of Juvenile Justice a juvenile has the right to be represented by counsel at “every critical stage of the proceedings.”
The opinion stated that because there is no indictment process for juveniles, the prosecutor’s action of filing a complaint takes on added significance changing its nature from investigative to accusatory. The court determined that as a “critical stage in the proceeding” that should trigger his right to counsel.
Justice John E. Wallace, Jr. wrote the opinion and he was joined by Justices Virginia Long, Jaynee LaVecchia and Barry T. Albin and Chief Justice Stuart Rabner. But it was not a unanimous decision.
Justice Roberto A. Rivera-Soto wrote a dissenting opinion that would affirm the appellate decision.
“Granting this adult defendant a newly found protection to which he otherwise would not be entitled solely because he committed his offense while still a juvenile defies basic common sense,” Rivera-Soto wrote.
Contact Hart at (609) 886-8600 Ext 35 or at: jhart@cmcherald.com