The Supreme Court has long considered competency to be a right of the criminal defendant in court. In many areas, insanity has been a criminal defense with a significant history. However, in the early part of this century, adult protections, including the competency requirement and common defenses like insanity, were not added into the juvenile court system. Because juvenile courts were established to protect juveniles from the rigors of adult court and punishments in adult …showed first 75 words of 1362 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1362 total…motion explaining that Georgia did not have laws protecting incompetent juveniles from being tried in delinquency proceedings. Not only do courts recognize incomplete development and incompetence, but most states’ laws recognize lack of development. For example, the law does not believe that kids under the age of sixteen are capable of deciding about their medical treatments, entering binding contracts, or operating automobiles. How could the law then turn around and prosecute someone in this category?