The Role Of Children In Court

Whether or not children are competent enough to withstand trial in court has been an interesting question since at least the 1960’s. The problem with trials before the 60’s was that defendants forced to argue their own cases, instead of having lawyers do this for them. This included children if they were accused of a crime that needed a trial. It did not happen that often, if even at all in some places, and so when it did actually happen these children were wrongfully tried as adults would have been. The question of how competent these children are is still asked, and researched today. New and easier ways of putting these kids on trial are surfacing all the time. The problem is, every child is different. For example, there are two 12 year old