Juvenile Capital Punishment

The United States is among only a few of the countries around the world to use the death penalty against juvenile offenders. As of 2004, juvenile offenders executed since 1976 in United States were already twenty-two. A total of thirty one states though prohibit the juvenile death penalty.

Right to transcript

During the course of his hearings, Mr. Gault was deprived of most of the privileges that various court decisions had granted his adult counterparts. His appeal was heard by the United States Supreme Court on the issues of: notice of the charge, right to counsel, right to confrontation and cross-examination, privilege against self-incrimination, right to transcript of the proceedings, and right to appellate review. Gault was entitled to those rights at the time and it was these rights that reshaped the direction of the juvenile justice system and replaced the concept of parens patriae with due process.