The 12-year-old crinkled up the pink tissue. She almost got the whole story out before her bravado turned to tears.
She told the room frankly about how the men broke into her house at 2 a.m. About how a boy with braids held a gun on her and her 4-year-old niece. About the other male who threatened to shoot her 1-year-old nephew if he didn't stop crying.Leaning nearer to the microphone as the judge instructed, she apologetically said she couldn't tell whether the person who had held a gun to her was in the courtroom.
In the end, it didn't matter. The boy, who rarely looked at the girl or the others who testified against him, was bound over to stand trial for the crimes.
The seriousness of the crime booted him out of the juvenile system and into the adult court, where the rest of the alleged culprits will be tried.
There were no winners in the small, nearly empty courtroom. The victims still deal with the trauma of the assault in the middle of the night. The boy's parents showed little emotion in the preliminary hearing, though the judge knows they too are suffering.
The boy didn't win.
In a small, nondescript building near 3300 South, the pain and anger, the love and anguish of juvenile justice gathers. The crimes are not always violent, nor are they easy to adjudicate.
In addition, a handful of the state's 22 juvenile judges also hear custody cases inside the small building, deciding whether, after a year of review, a person is fit to be a parent.
The weighty issues, combined with the fragility of the youths involved, preclude the public and the media from many juvenile hearings. Yet, even those that remain open garner few spectators, except in especially high-profile cases.
The Deseret News followed the presiding judge of Utah's 3rd Juvenile District this summer as he raced through two typical days of court. A reporter sat in chambers, courtrooms and detention and preliminary hearings. Other hearings, including ones involving custody, remained off limits.
Judge Frederic Oddone later spoke candidly about the closed hearings and the pressure of being judge and jury on cases that change lives so drastically.
He hasn't always been Judge Oddone. He prosecuted juvenile offenders for 22 years for the Salt Lake District Attorney's Office before being named to the bench by Gov. Mike Leavitt in 1994.
On one rainy summer day he, two clerks and a reporter race a few blocks to the Salt Lake Valley Detention Center for hearings he must conclude before racing back to his courtroom for a 9 a.m. arraignment. Oddone will be late by more than an hour as he decides whether girls and boys, hands shackled, should be released or stay in detention.
He assures a 16-year-old runaway that arrangements are being made to send her back to her Oregon home. Another boy rocks back and forth in his chair saying "thank you, thank you" when the judge releases him to his grandfather's care.
It doesn't always end happily. One father comes out of the tiny, windowless courtroom yelling at the bailiff.
When he does make it back to 3rd District Juvenile Court, the attorneys and a teenager are waiting for Oddone.
The young man sitting between two attorneys is accused of shooting at another teen. The 19-year-old victim wasn't injured. Thanks to a quick drop to the ground, the only injury was to the Cottonwood Mall's plate-glass door, which shattered.
The judge allows one of the 17-year-old's hands to be unshackled so the boy can take notes. Bailiff Randy Lish then asks the witness and a Salt Lake County sheriff's deputy to spit out their gum. They are both surprised, but Lish later explains it's out of respect for the court. The gum tends to end up on the bottom of chairs anyway, Oddone says.
The testimony begins and the boy takes notes, as does his father, Elliott, who moved from Chicago back to Salt Lake City, fearing his son wasn't being properly supervised. Later, the man tells the Deseret News his son is a good boy who grew up in a Christian home - "we don't even cuss" - and was victimized by the system designed to help him.
Elliott wanted custody of his youngest son but didn't get it. The judge's decision kept his son in a situation where he would fail, Elliott said.
"Now, we have to go to court and see him in chains and watch prosecutors portray him as a low-down, no-good murderer," the boy's father said.
"I sit every night wondering what's going to happen," Elliott said. "I'm willing to sacrifice anything. I just hope it's not too late."
Guilt, frustration, fear and myriad other emotions are the companions of parents who sit as courtroom observers to their children's fate. The emotions are as plentiful as the cases and children themselves.
Of the 38,052 Utahns who turned 18 in 1995, 13,298 had been referred at least once to Utah's juvenile courts for a criminal offense. That's almost 36 percent of 18-year-olds, said Mike Phillips, deputy juvenile court administrator. But Phillips said almost half of those are "good kids" who don't come back. Only 5 percent return to court more than four times.
Phillips said when officials looked at the 18-year-olds in 1995, they found 715 had four or more incidents that would be considered felonies in adult court. That 715 - less than 2 percent of all the kids in the system - were responsible for 60 percent of all the felonies.
Sitting in chambers just off his courtroom, Oddone sheds his judicial robe as he reflects on the children who come before him every day.
Oddone blames juvenile crime on the breakup of the family. "We're seeing more and more kids that are 10, 11, 12 and 13," Oddone said. "This says something about our society - about how successful we are as a community."
The judge says institutions, including courts, that were created to deal with the problems of families of the 1950s are forced to deal with problems of the 1990s.
"Juvenile court is a mirror for what is happening in our community," Oddone said.
It's rare the judge sees both parents in court. He sees parents who shirk responsibility and act like children themselves. And, in juvenile justice, the court deals with the young defendant - and the extended family.
"An irresolvable problem is if you take a juvenile and make progress with him and have to send him back to the same despair, frustration and dysfunction. It unwinds all of the progress you've made," Oddone said.
Not all of the children who walk through juvenile court doors are offenders. Juvenile judges also oversee weighty family issues. "Termination hearings," as they are called, are the most difficult, the most heart-wrenching.
"Those are the ones that keep you up at night," Oddone, a father of four, said of the hearings that can permanently take abused or neglected children from parents and give custody to the state.
"You're trying to protect the child," Oddone said. "Every judge I know on the juvenile court bench really anguishes over these kinds of cases."
Oddone wants to see parents turn their lives around, kick drug habits and keep custody of their children. But some are unable or have made an "inadequate commitment" to their children. "When you make kids, you make promises," Oddone said.
A knock on the door and Oddone meets briefly with an old colleague. His time is running short, his calendar full of hearings for the rest of the day.
Despite a large caseload and resource limitations, Oddone considers Utah's juvenile justice system among the country's best. He credits quality programming in Youth Corrections and a supportive Legislature and governor.
There is a knock again, and Oddone and another judge close the door to talk privately. Oddone's clerk stacks files upon files in the small office next door, preparing for the following day's schedule.
In the court's lobby, a young boy in baggy jeans sits with his mother and caseworker. The fresh-faced teen laughs easily with the adults as the trio waits its turn before a judge. The boy says he can't wait until he's "finished" with juvenile court. The caseworker agrees: Court can take up a lot of time in a young life.
The boy shakes his head, looks at his mom, and says, "I know."