Juvenile in Justice: A Look at Maryland's Practice of Incarcerating Children Without a Jury Trial

Kelsey Robinson

In Maryland, if Shane is arrested and charged the day before his eighteenth birthday with malicious destruction of property for throwing a rock at a vehicle, he will be adjudicated as a delinquent. In this case, Shane is not entitled to a jury trial. However, if Shane is arrested for this same crime on the day of his eighteenth birthday, then he will be charged as an adult and is entitled to a jury trial because the offense he is charged with permits imprisonment for a period of more than ninety days. Yet Shane— merely because he is considered a juvenile for the charge when he is seventeen years, 364-days-old—is not afforded the protection of a jury trial if he is charged before his birthday. Since the juvenile court has jurisdiction over Shane until he is twenty-one-years-old, Shane faces a possible period of incarceration of three years when adjudicated delinquent. Yet when charged as an adult, Shane faces a period of incarceration that is at most one year.

This Comment will argue that because juveniles adjudicated delinquent in Maryland are subject to incarceration upon disposition and thus at risk of losing their liberty, they are constitutionally entitled to a jury trial. Depriving juveniles the right to a jury trial violates Article 21 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, which specifies “[t]hat in all criminal prosecutions, every man hath a right to . . . trial by an impartial jury.” It also violates Article 24, which states that “no man ought to be . . . imprisoned or disseized of his freehold liberties . . . or, in any manner, . . . deprived of his . . . liberty . . . but by the judgment of his peers, or by the Law of the land.” Because juveniles are deprived of their liberty when they are, in effect, prosecuted and incarcerated, they are constitutionally entitled to a jury trial under the Declaration of Rights.

Part I of this Comment will discuss the constitutional protections that the Supreme Court of the United States has extended to juveniles and will explore the relevant history of the juvenile system, particularly in Maryland. It further will provide an overview on the important role that jury trials have in the criminal legal system. Part II will examine how judicial discretion, conditions of confinement, excessive sentences, and the lack of a jury trial right, violates Articles 21 and 24 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights. Part II will also evaluate the policy justifications for allowing juveniles in Maryland the right to a jury trial and will examine the rationales of other jurisdictions that have granted juveniles the right to a jury trial and will apply those rationales to Maryland to conclude that Maryland law does entitle a juvenile the right to a jury trial.