## Facts

- A certified class of juveniles in Dade County, Florida challenged juvenile court practices governing pretrial detention.
- Florida law required a juvenile taken into custody to appear within 48 hours for a pre-detention hearing to decide release or detention pending a later adjudicatory hearing.
- Statutory detention considerations included danger to persons or property, adequacy of parental supervision, and assurance of appearance; in practice, courts also considered the alleged offense’s seriousness.
- Money bail was unavailable for detained juveniles.
- Juvenile court judges regularly ordered detention without making an explicit judicial determination of probable cause that the juvenile committed a delinquent act.
- The federal district court declared the practice unconstitutional and ordered that detention could not continue without an adversary probable-cause showing through competent, sworn testimony with cross-examination.

## Issues

1. Whether the Constitution requires a prompt judicial determination of probable cause as a prerequisite to continued pretrial detention of juveniles arrested without a warrant.
2. If probable cause is required, whether the Constitution mandates an adversarial evidentiary hearing with sworn testimony and cross-examination to establish probable cause.

## Decision

- The Fifth Circuit affirmed that juveniles detained after arrest are entitled to a prompt judicial determination of probable cause.
- The court agreed that detention decisions based only on detention-related statutory factors cannot substitute for the separate constitutional requirement of probable cause as to the alleged offense.
- The court modified the district court’s remedy, holding the Constitution does not require a probable-cause proceeding as comprehensive or adversarial as the district court ordered.
- Disposition: affirmed in part and modified.

## Legal Principles

- The Fourth Amendment bars continued custodial detention without a prompt, neutral judicial determination of probable cause, and this protection applies to juveniles as well as adults.
- A jurisdiction may consider risk and welfare factors in deciding whether to detain, but those factors cannot justify detention absent probable cause to believe the juvenile committed the alleged delinquent act.
- The Constitution permits streamlined procedures for the probable-cause determination at the initial detention stage; it does not require live, sworn testimony and cross-examination as a constitutional minimum.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit required a prompt judicial probable-cause determination before juveniles arrested without a warrant may be held in pretrial detention, but it limited federal equitable relief by rejecting any constitutional requirement for a fully adversarial probable-cause hearing.


Moss v. Weaver, 525 F.2d 1258 (5th Cir. 1976)