Law Commons^™

Rethinking Family-Court Prosecutors: Elected And Agency Prosecutors And Prosecutorial Discretion In Juvenile Delinquency And Child Protection Cases, Joshua Gupta-Kagan

Faculty Scholarship

Like criminal prosecutors, family-court prosecutors have immense power. Determining which cases to prosecute and which to divert or dismiss goes to the heart of the delinquency system’s balance between punishment and rehabilitation of children and the child protection system’s spectrum of family interventions. For instance, the 1990s shift to prosecute (rather than dismiss or divert) about 10 percent more delinquency cases annually is as significant a development as any other. Yet scholars have not examined the legal structures for these charging decisions or family-court prosecutors’ authority in much depth.

This Article shows how family-court prosecutors’ roles have never been fully …

A Proposal To Allow The Presentation Of Mitigation In Juvenile Court So That Juvenile Charges May Be Expunged In Appropriate Cases, Katherine I. Puzone

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

2011 Survey Of Juvenile Law, Michael J. Dale

Faculty Scholarship

Atypically, the Supreme Court of Florida was not active during the past year, deciding no cases in the juvenile law field. On the other hand, the intermediate appellate courts were active both in the delinquency area and in the dependency field. As in the past, decisions in the delinquency area involving generic issues of criminal procedure not unique to juvenile delinquency are not covered in this article.

Called 'Out' At Home: The One Strike Eviction Policy And Juvenile Court, Wendy J. Kaplan, David Rossman

Faculty Scholarship

One of the harshest collateral consequences of a juvenile delinquency case is the prospect of eviction from public housing. Under the federal government’s One Strike policy, public housing authorities are encouraged to evict families for any criminal act by their children, no matter how trivial. This politically popular policy creates more social ills than it cures. There is no evidence that it reduces crime in public housing, but there is abundant evidence that it makes families homeless, puts children out on the street, leads police departments to breach laws concerning confidentiality of juvenile proceedings, and creates conflicts of interest between …

Developmental Incompetence, Due Process, And Juvenile Justice Policy, Elizabeth S. Scott, Thomas Grisso

Faculty Scholarship

In 2003, the Florida District Court of Appeal reversed the murder conviction and life sentence imposed on Lionel Tate, who was twelve years old when he killed his six-year-old neighbor. Since Lionel was reported to be the youngest person in modern times to be sent to prison for life, the case had generated considerable debate, and the decision was appealed on several grounds. What persuaded the appellate court that the conviction could not stand, however, was the trial court's rejection of a petition by Lionel's attorney for an evaluation of his client's competence to assist counsel and to make a …