Law Commons^™

A Unique Bench, A Common Code: Evaluating Judicial Ethics In Juvenile Court, Michele Benedetto Neitz

Publications

Recent cases involving ethical scandals on the juvenile court bench have caught the interest of legal scholars, judges, practitioners, and the public. This article proposes a new theoretical framework for assessing these problems and articulates a series of vital ethical reforms.

Despite their distinct role in an atypical court, juvenile court judges are not subject to unique ethical standards. Most jurisdictions have adopted the ABA Model Code of Judicial Conduct as the ethical code guiding juvenile court judges. However, this Model Code, intended to apply to any person in a decision-making capacity, was created for a more conventional type of …