Bifurcated Hearings in the Juvenile Court

Abstract

In this paper, the nature and procedures of the juvenile court adjudication process, as distinguished from the disposition proc ess, are briefly discussed and related to the need for separate adjudicatory and dispositional hearings in the juvenile court. The problem of permitting certain dispositional functions to occur before the adjudication is then considered, as well as the question of whether the dispositional hearing, or dispositional phase of the hearing, must always take place at a later date than the adjudicatory hearing or phase. For the purposes of this paper, "bifurcation" refers to the separation of the adjudicatory hearing (analogous to the criminal trial) from the dispositional hearing (analogous to the criminal sentencing hearing) by a sub stantial period of time, the hearings being scheduled and held on different days. The discussion is based upon positions of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, as articulated in its Standard Juvenile Court Act (sixth edition, 1959) and the Council of Judges' Model Rules for Juvenile Courts (1969).