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Departing From Teague: Miller V. Alabama's Invitation To The States To Experiment With New Retroactivity Standards, Eric Schab

Eric Schab

No abstract provided.

The Ethics Of Effective Advocacy For Children In Abuse And Neglect Proceedings, Suparna Malempati

Suparna Malempati

This article addresses ethical dilemmas lawyers face when representing children in abuse and neglect proceedings in juvenile court. Children in such cases need traditional advocacy in order to protect their legal rights and effectuate just outcomes. Lawyers who represent children have an ethical obligation to perform this function as advocates for their clients and not merely as guardians ad litem who make paternalistic recommendations about the best interests of children. The requirement that lawyers disregard their role as advocates for the role of guardians ad litem circumvents the ethical rules that govern lawyers and fails to adequately and effectively safeguard …

Denying Freedom Rather Than Securing The Country: National Security Is Undermined By Laws Governing Battered Immigrants, Eve Tilley-Coulson

Eve Tilley-Coulson

Relief for battered immigrants is not an obvious national security matter per se, yet remedies are enacted in conjunction with stringent interpretations of immigration law, as though victims pose a security threat. Discrepancies exist between the immigration laws themselves—which attempt to secure the United States from disease, violence, and illegal activity—and the loopholes found within remedies under these laws, unnecessarily removing victims and perpetuating a cycle of fear and abuse. This paper addresses how relief for battered immigrants, when implemented with the priority of protecting national security and immigration legislation, creates and perpetuates negative societal consequences. The economic and societal …

Women At The Forefront: An Examination Of The Disproportionate Exposure Of Mothers To Liability Under Parental Responsibility Laws, Portia Allen-Kyle

Portia Allen-Kyle

This Note discusses the social and legislative affinity for parental responsibility laws in response to juvenile delinquency and victimization and examines the discriminatory impact of such laws on mothers. This Note argues two-fold that: 1) the mere existence of parental responsibility statutes perpetuates “mother blaming” and disproportionately exposes mothers to liability and are thus discriminatory in their effect, and 2) the use of vicarious, strict liability for parents is ineffective and inappropriate in affecting juvenile behavior. Section I provides a discussion about the history of parental responsibility laws and argue the symbolic purpose of many parental responsibility laws. Section II …

A Decade Of Progress: Promising Models For Children Found In The Turkish Juvenile Justice System, Brenda A. Mckinney, Lauren Salins

Brenda A McKinney

Turkey has improved its approach to interacting with children in conflict with the law over the past decade, moving closer to a system that ensures its children the opportunity to strive for a better future. This Article focuses on two promising Turkish reforms that hold potential to improve juvenile justice systems internationally, namely: open model incarceration and Turkey’s approach to diversion. This Article demonstrates how a child-centered juvenile justice system can improve public safety and outcomes for youth. It also addresses potential challenges to each model and identifies broader issues that may require reform.

Against Juvenile Sex Offender Registration, Catherine L. Carpenter

Catherine L Carpenter

Against Juvenile Sex Offender Registration Catherine L. Carpenter* Abstract Imagine if you were held accountable the rest of your life for something you did as a child? This is the Child Scarlet Letter in force: kids who commit criminal sexual acts and who pay the price with the burdens and stigma of sex offender registration. And in a game of “how low can you go?,” states have forced children as young as nine and ten years old onto sex offender registries, some with registration requirements that extend the rest of their lives. It is both unremarkable and true that children …

A Decade Of Progress: Promising Models For Children In The Turkish Juvenile Justice System, Brenda Mckinney, Lauren Salins

Brenda A McKinney

In the past decade, Turkey has improved its approach to dealing with children in conflict with the law and moved the country closer to a system that ensures all children have the chance they deserve to strive for a better future. This paper focuses on two promising reforms that have been instituted in Turkey and that have the potential for improving juvenile justice systems in the rest of the world. They are: 1) open model incarceration and 2) diversion. While this paper also addresses challenges inherent in these models and discusses broader issues in the Turkish juvenile justice system that …

A Shot In Arm: Can Chemical Castration Statutes Cure Sex Offenders Legally And Ethically?, Robert Watters

Robert Watters

At least seven states currently have sex offender castration statutes. This article examines the legal and ethical appropriateness of those statutes against the successful and unsuccessful European models.

Kids, Counsel And Costs: An Empirical Study Of Indigent Defense Services In The Los Angeles Juvenile Delinquency Courts, Cyn Yamashiro

cyn yamashiro

In the landmark case In re Gault, the Supreme Court guaranteed juveniles virtually all of the criminal due process rights previously granted to adults. Arguably the most vital of those rights is the right to competent counsel. Scholars have studied how systems provide legal counsel and have questioned the use of certain models to provide defense services. Los Angeles County utilizes two distinct models for the provision of defense services: a contract-panel attorney model and a public defender office. This study looks at data from over 2,800 juvenile court case files from the Los Angeles juvenile courts and asks the …

The Mandatory Meaning Of Miller, William W. Berry Iii

William W Berry III

In June 2012, the United States Supreme Court held in Miller v. Alabama that the imposition of mandatory life-without-parole sentences on juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual” punishment. This case continued the Supreme Court’s slow but steady expansion of the scope of the Eighth Amendment over the past decade. In light of the Court’s decision in Miller to preclude mandatory sentences of life without parole for juveniles, this article explores the possibility of further expansion of the Eighth Amendment to proscribe other kinds of mandatory sentences. Applying the approach of the Court in Miller to other …

Disparate Protections For American Human Trafficking Victims, Amanda J. Peters

Amanda J Peters

The United States enacted the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) in 2000. It was the first piece of legislation to address human trafficking. Since that time, the United States has monitored anti-trafficking efforts worldwide. Nations that fail to meet minimum standards set by the United States risk losing non-humanitarian financial aid from the federal government, the International Monetary Fund, and global banks. Yet, these minimum standards are not met by the United States when it comes to protecting American trafficking victims.

According to the TVPA, governments shall attempt to prevent human trafficking, punish traffickers, and protect people who have been …

To Testify Or Not To Testify: The Dilemma Facing Children With Multiple Cases Before The Same Judge In Delinquency Court., Katherine I. Puzone

Katherine I. Puzone

In Juvenile Court, children often have more than one case pending, especially children living in group foster homes and those at alternative schools. In many jurisdictions, all of a child’s cases are assigned to the same judge. If the child is arrested at a later time, the new case is also assigned to the same judge. That means that if a child exercises her right to go to trial in each case, the same judge will hear every case. If they are set for trial on the same day, and they often are, the judge will hear each case in …

Beyond Law Enforcement: Camreta V. Greene, Child Protection Investigations, And The Need To Reform The Fourth Amendment Special Needs Doctrine, Josh Gupta-Kagan

Josh Gupta-Kagan

The Fourth Amendment “special needs” doctrine distinguishes between searches and seizures that serve the “normal need for law enforcement” and those that serve some other “special need,” excusing non-law enforcement searches and seizures from the warrant and probable cause requirements. The Supreme Court has never justified drawing this bright line exclusively around law enforcement searches and seizures but not those that threaten important non-criminal constitutional rights.

Child protection investigations illustrate the problem: Millions of times each year, state child protection authorities search families’ homes, and seize children for interviews about alleged maltreatment. Only a minority of these investigations involve an …

No State Actor Left Behind: Rethinking Section 1983 Liability In The Context Of Disciplinary Alternative Schools And Beyond, Emily Chiang

Emily Chiang

In an era in which seemingly no institutions are immune from privatization, determining the boundaries of state action has never been more important. This Article seeks to clarify the doctrine of state action as applied to publicly-funded, privately-run institutions serving individuals involuntarily placed there by the state. It does so by using disciplinary alternative schools as a classic example of one such institution, wherein the individuals served have constitutional rights that are both particularly vulnerable to infringement and which cannot be vindicated without a finding of state action. In particular, the Article (1) introduces the phenomena of disciplinary alternative schools …

Cruel And Unusual Punishment: Adult Prison For Florida's Children, Mary E. Day

Mary E. Day

The manuscript addresses whether Florida law comports with the recent Supreme Court of the United States holding in Graham v. Florida that sentencing a nonhomicide juvenile offender to life without parole constitutes cruel and unusual punishment since such a punishment lacks opportunities for the youth to rehabilitate and reform. The manuscript asserts that consequently, Florida laws allowing for the direct filing of juvenile offenders such that they are subject to incarceration in adult prisons will not likely withstand a constitutional challenge as long as Florida's juveniles are denied opportunities for reform.

Plugging The School To Prison Pipeline By Addressing Cultural Racism In Public Education Discipline, Patrick Metze

Patrick Metze

As timely as today’s headlines, I take a critical look at the failure of the public schools to educate our children by criminalizing and alienating students of color and of economic disadvantage, forcing them out of the schools and into the juvenile justice system as the first step to a life of reduced expectations and productivity. We are failing to prevent these children from becoming disengaged from society and its institutions that were designed for their benefit – the institution of a free public education. It is time we frankly acknowledge that our long stored history of racial conflict has …

The Law In Conflict With Human Rights Of Young Adults: International, Regional And Country Practices Of Young Adult Offenders, Jessica Rau

jessica rau

Law has traditionally relied on age markers to distinguish between juvenile and adult offenders, while ignoring the category of young adult offenders. This article defines young adults, young adult offenders and young adulthood as the ages between 18 and 24. Young adulthood is a social category, but it is affected by ongoing psychological and neurological development. Age-crime theories have demonstrated that the age of young adulthood creates a risk factor for criminal behavior. The same behavioral and developmental components that put young adults at risk of coming into contact with the law simultaneously support their potential for rehabilitation; an argument …

Death Is Not So Different After All: Graham V. Florida And The Court’S “Kids Are Different” Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence, Mary E. Berkheiser

Mary E Berkheiser

Death Is Not So Different After All: Graham v. Florida and the Court’s “Kids Are Different” Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence Mary Berkheiser Abstract In Graham v. Florida, the United States Supreme Court declared that life sentences without the possibility of parole for non-homicides are off limits for all juveniles. Following its lead in Roper v. Simmons, the landmark decision in which the Court abolished the juvenile death penalty, the Court expanded on its Eighth Amendment juvenile jurisprudence by ruling that locking up juveniles for life based on crimes other than homicides is cruel and unusual and, therefore, prohibited by the Eighth …