XIV Amendment: Adults/Children

[Rob Lister]

Cylinder wrote (second page near the current top) in this thread:

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/newreply.php?s=&action=newreply&postid=1870990422

This issue is dealt with directly in Section V of the opinion. To establish an equal protections claim, the condition must be immutable (not subject to change) and without any basis in compelling needs of the state.

The court found that youth is not immutable. You grow into adulthood. Old age is immutable since you will be old for the remainder of your life.

The court also found a compelling need of the state. This was argued on the grounds that parents must be involved in the rehabilitation of children and the purpose of the statute was to hold children until parental notification was achieved.

The same argument could be used if my three-year-old decided to run away from home. Since the only grounds that the police could use to detain her was based solely on her age (you cannot force an 18-year-old to do the same), the discrimination is based on a well-established public need. Finding equal protection problems based on youth would strike down drinking ages, force governments to incarcerate juveniles in adult prisons. etc...


It should be noted again that the court expressed strong reservation with the spirit of how the statute was enforced in this instance, but noticed that those objections were moot, since the policy was terminated before the case was heard by the District Court.

I get that. I digest that (now). I still have reservations. My reservations revolve around Parental consent, not so much notifications. I understand that the state has a valid interest in treating children (protecting and restricting children) moreso than it does adults. In the case, unlike the examples you cited, the law applied absolutely equally to adults and children (zero-tolerance) but the punishment applied much more less drastically to adults than children.

The adult gets a ticket, at worst.

The child gets arrested, at best.

I think this is a clear violation of the 14th amendment.

The only state interest that I can see is difficulty they brought, rightly or wrongly, upon themselves by deciding that since they did not have an convenient method of recovering due process (getting the ticket paid) from a child (generally lacking identification and legal culpability) that they place upon the child an identification process and a culpability far greater than that of an adult.

This seems backward to me. Another solution was constitutionally required if we are to adhere to the 14th amendment's spirit.

 

[Cylinder]

Hedgepeth v Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority

I'll have time to fully digest that opinion a little later, but I think the gist is that the police practice may have had certain problems, but that policy had been suspended and it did not affect the outcome (Hedgepeth's juvenile record). I strongly disagree that equal protection status can be applied to minors a priori.

 

[crimresearch]

"In the case, unlike the examples you cited, the law applied absolutely equally to adults and children (zero-tolerance) but the punishment applied much more less drastically to adults than children.

The adult gets a ticket, at worst.

The child gets arrested, at best.

I think this is a clear violation of the 14th amendment."

Surely you are not suggesting that either an arrest or a citation, are a form of punishment are you?

As far as the subway case, if a 12 y/o child lacks the legal ability to sign a contract, how can they sign a citation, promising to appear in court, or mail in a fine?
They have to be personally arraigned, and typically, parents would be the ones to sign something on their behalf.

Children are not just miniature adults, and even under the 14th amendment, the law treats them differently from adults in certain instances, precisely because they are different from adults.

 

[Rob Lister]

"In the case, unlike the examples you cited, the law applied absolutely equally to adults and children (zero-tolerance) but the punishment applied much more less drastically to adults than children.

The adult gets a ticket, at worst.

The child gets arrested, at best.

I think this is a clear violation of the 14th amendment."

Surely you are not suggesting that either an arrest or a citation, are a form of punishment are you?

As far as the subway case, if a 12 y/o child lacks the legal ability to sign a contract, how can they sign a citation, promising to appear in court, or mail in a fine?
They have to be personally arraigned, and typically, parents would be the ones to sign something on their behalf.

Children are not just miniature adults, and even under the 14th amendment, the law treats them differently from adults in certain instances, precisely because they are different from adults.

But in this case the difference does benefits neither the state nor the child/parent.

As to the matter of the contract; when was the last time you signed a parking ticket? In the case of children, this type of enforcement is quite common, in fact. Helmet laws for bicycles comes to mind. If you're under 14(?) and caught riding your bike without a helmet; you get a ticket. No signing necessary. The cop questions you as to your name and address (because most youths lack formal ID) and that's what he puts on the ticket.

The kid could lie about about the address but so too could an adult (does the law require that an adult carry ID?). I'm busy but I wanted to get that out in writing before I forgot.

It isn't a contract in the typical sense anyway but if you wanted to insist it was then it would have to be on the basis that there could be no meeting of the minds. All other contractual conditions are met. If the child is old enough to be held culpable to the law, the child is, by definition to be held culpable to the meeting of the minds.

 

[Checkmite]

Being arrested is not a punitive action of any sort. Nor is the issuing of a ticket. The punitive action comes later, in court - at which point I think you'll find that the "punishment" for youth is not so much greater than for adults after all.

It's been brought up above - tickets and citations cannot be issued to children, because they don't have the recognized legal ability to sign forms, make promises, and the like. A parent needs to do that for them. And if the parent is not there at the moment, the minor is simply arrested (i.e., stopped from going anywhere) and brought to the police station, where the parent can come and then sign the ticket or citation and make the assurance that the minor will appear in court, or otherwise settle the matter.

 

[crimresearch]

But in this case the difference does benefits neither the state nor the child/parent.

As to the matter of the contract; when was the last time you signed a parking ticket? In the case of children, this type of enforcement is quite common, in fact. Helmet laws for bicycles comes to mind. If you're under 14(?) and caught riding your bike without a helmet; you get a ticket. No signing necessary. The cop questions you as to your name and address (because most youths lack formal ID) and that's what he puts on the ticket.

The kid could lie about about the address but so too could an adult (does the law require that an adult carry ID?). I'm busy but I wanted to get that out in writing before I forgot.

It isn't a contract in the typical sense anyway but if you wanted to insist it was then it would have to be on the basis that there could be no meeting of the minds. All other contractual conditions are met. If the child is old enough to be held culpable to the law, the child is, by definition to be held culpable to the meeting of the minds.

I didn't say that a citation was a business contract, it is more that a child's promise to appear would not be considered to have been given freely and knowingly, for the same reasons that a child cannot be considered to have freely and knowingly signed a business contract.
'Meeting of the minds' might be a factor when there is the ability to consent, and as we all know, children do not always have that ability under the law.
Nor would they automatically be presumed to always have the ability to understand what a promise to appear in court means.

As to the other points...

The law makes it a crime to provide false ID.

The law makes it a crime to fail to show up in court

And the law provides that someone who is offered the chance to promise to show up in court and who doesn't agree to promise may be compelled to appear for arraignment.
I'm not aware of any legal requirement that a cop must let someone go whom they have just observed comitting a crime, with a promise to appear. It is an option, not a mandate AFAIK.

The fact that some jurisdictions have chosen to allow more such options in their bureaucratic administration of the arrest/citation process does not (under the 14th) make it mandatory that every other jurisdiction follow suit. Equal protection is not equal convenience.