McKeiver v. Pennsylvania

A citizen's right to a trial by jury is covered in the Fourteenth Amendment, which states, in part:

. . . No State shall . . . deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The "due process" in this case refers to a fair and speedy trial; a trial by a jury composed of members of one's general community is another tenet of the American justice system. Such constitutional rights, however, were generally not accorded to minors within the separate legal sphere of the juvenile courts.