Moss v. Weaver

Florida law required a juvenile taken into custody and charged with a crime to appear before a juvenile-court judge for a pre-determination hearing within 48 hours of being taken into custody. To determine whether to release or detain the juvenile pending the adjudication hearing, the judge was statutorily mandated to consider whether detention was necessary to protect the life or property of the juvenile or others, whether a parent or guardian was available to provide adequate care and supervision of the juvenile, and whether the parent or guardian could assure the court of the juvenile’s appearance for the adjudication hearing. In practice, the judge would also consider the seriousness of the offense at the pre-determination hearing. Ronald Moss (plaintiff) filed a class-action lawsuit against the juvenile-court judges and state attorney for Dade County, Florida (the juvenile-court administrators) (defendants) seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. Moss alleged that the juvenile-court practice of holding juveniles in pretrial detention without considering whether there was probable cause to believe the juvenile had committed the charged offense violated the due-process rights of charged juveniles. The district court found that juveniles were constitutionally entitled to an adversarial hearing with a finding of probable cause before being held in pretrial detention. An appeal followed.