In a ruling affecting every ongoing juvenile case in the state, the Kansas Supreme Court has ruled that all juveniles facing prosecution have a constitutional right to a jury. The case, brought by Paul Shipp of Kansas Legal Services, will have a huge impact on the state’s juvenile justice system, affecting every case that is now on appeal or in process, as well as all future cases.

JLC filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief in the case, which involved a challenge to the non-juried delinquency adjudication of a teen who would be subject to a sex offender registration that would penalize him well into his adult years. L.M.’s attorney filed a motion asking for a jury trial, but the request was denied by the district court judge. L.M. ultimately appealed his case to the Kansas Supreme Court. The Court actually went beyond the facts of L.M.’s case, extending the right to jury trials to all juveniles facing delinquency charges. It said that Kansas had so changed its juvenile code in recent years—from a rehabilitative to a punitive model—that the Kansas and U.S. Constitutions entitled juveniles to ask for a jury, rather than a judge, to be a fact finder.