Abstract
The 1967 In re Gault decision by the United States Supreme Court expressly noted that its procedural requirements for the adjudicatory stage had no necessary applicability to the preadjudication treatment of juveniles. However, the Gault mandate of the right to defense counsel in time led to greater prosecution representation of the community interest at ad judicatory hearings. This set in motion another development which is now eroding probation officers' informal, discretionary practices at the intake stage. State legislatures, responding to public concerns regarding juvenile crime, are rapidly placing prosecutors in decisional roles at juvenile intake, using various models in accommodating and accomplishing this. This development portrays yet another example of the replacement of historic juvenile court informality and parens patriae practice by a legal process model.
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