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Full-Text Articles in Law
Developmental Justice And The Voting Age, Katharine B. Silbaugh
Developmental Justice And The Voting Age, Katharine B. Silbaugh
Faculty Scholarship
Several municipalities have lowered the voting age to 16, with similar bills pending in state legislatures and one considered by Congress. Meanwhile, advocates for youth are trying to raise the ages of majority across an array of areas of law, including ages for diverting criminal conduct into the juvenile justice system (18 to 21); buying tobacco (18 to 21); driving (16 to 18); and obtaining support from the foster care system (18 to 21). Child welfare advocates are fighting the harms of Adultification, meaning the projection of adult capacities, responsibilities, and consequences onto minors. In legal and social history, seeing …
Covid-19 And Prisoners’ Rights, Gregory Bernstein, Stephanie Guzman, Maggie Hadley, Rosalyn M. Huff, Alison Hung, Anita N.H. Yandle, Alexis Hoag, Bernard E. Harcourt
Covid-19 And Prisoners’ Rights, Gregory Bernstein, Stephanie Guzman, Maggie Hadley, Rosalyn M. Huff, Alison Hung, Anita N.H. Yandle, Alexis Hoag, Bernard E. Harcourt
Faculty Scholarship
As COVID-19 continues to spread rapidly across the country, the crowded and unsanitary conditions in prisons, jails, juvenile detention, and immigration detention centers leave incarcerated individuals especially vulnerable. This chapter will discuss potential avenues for detained persons and their lawyers seeking to use the legal system to obtain relief, including potential release, during this extraordinary, unprecedented crisis.
The Problem With Inference For Juvenile Defendants, Jenny E. Carroll
The Problem With Inference For Juvenile Defendants, Jenny E. Carroll
Faculty Scholarship
Much of criminal law relies on proof by inference. In criminal law, fact finders untangle not only what happened, but why it happened. It is answering the “why” question that places an act and its result on the legal spectrum of liability. To reach that answer, the fact finder must engage in an interpretive act, considering not only what can be seen or heard, but the significance of that testimony or physical evidence in real world contexts – the world in which they occurred but also the fact finder’s own world. Recent developments in neuroscience suggest that in the context …
Brain Science And The Theory Of Juvenile Mens Rea, Jenny E. Carroll
Brain Science And The Theory Of Juvenile Mens Rea, Jenny E. Carroll
Faculty Scholarship
The law has long recognized the distinction between adults and children. A legally designated age determines who can vote, exercise reproductive rights, voluntarily discontinue their education, buy alcohol or tobacco, marry, drive a car, or obtain a tattoo. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld such age-based restrictions, most recently constructing an Eighth Amendment jurisprudence that bars the application of certain penalties to juvenile offenders and a Fourth Amendment jurisprudence that contemplates an adolescent-based standard of reasonableness for the Miranda v. Arizona custody analysis. In the cases of Roper v. Simmons , Graham v. Florida , Miller v. Alabama , and …
Death Ineligibility And Habeas Corpus, Lee B. Kovarsky
Death Ineligibility And Habeas Corpus, Lee B. Kovarsky
Faculty Scholarship
I examine the interaction between what I call 'death ineligibility' challenges and the habeas writ. A death ineligibility claim alleges that a criminally-confined capital prisoner belongs to a category of offenders for which the Eighth Amendment forbids execution. By contrast, a 'crime innocence' claim alleges that, colloquially speaking, a capital prisoner 'wasn’t there, and didn’t do it.' In the last eight years, the Supreme Court has identified several new ineligibility categories, including mentally retarded offenders. Configured primarily to address crime innocence and procedural challenges, however, modern habeas law is poorly equipped to accommodate ineligibility claims. Death Ineligibility traces the genesis …
Rethinking The Constitutional Criminal Procedure Of Juvenile Transfer Hearings: Apprendi, Adult Punishment And Adult Process, Jenny E. Carroll
Rethinking The Constitutional Criminal Procedure Of Juvenile Transfer Hearings: Apprendi, Adult Punishment And Adult Process, Jenny E. Carroll
Faculty Scholarship
This article makes valuable new contributions to the burgeoning scholarly discourse on Apprendi v. New Jersey-a landmark decision that celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. It builds on the author's experience as a public defender, during which she pioneered the surprising but straightforward argument that under Apprendi, findings that justify transferring a juvenile to adult court must be proven to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. Apprendi requires that any fact authorizing a sentence higher than the otherwise applicable statutory maximum must be found by a jury using a beyond a reasonable doubt standard. This tenet applies directly to juvenile …
Privacy And The Criminal Arrestee Or Suspect: In Search Of A Right, In Need Of A Rule, Sadiq Reza
Privacy And The Criminal Arrestee Or Suspect: In Search Of A Right, In Need Of A Rule, Sadiq Reza
Faculty Scholarship
Criminal accusation stigmatizes. Merely having been accused of a crime lasts in the public eye, damaging one's reputation and threatening current and future employment, relationships, social status, and more. But vast numbers of criminal cases are dismissed soon after arrest, and countless accusations are unfounded or unprovable. Nevertheless, police officers and prosecutors routinely name criminal accusees to the public upon arrest or suspicion, with no obligation to publicize a defendant's exoneration, or the dismissal of his case, or a decision not to file charges against him at all. Other individuals caught up in the criminal process enjoy protections against the …
One Strike And You're Out? Constitutional Constraints On Zero Tolerance In Public Education, Eric D. Blumenson, Eva S. Nilsen
One Strike And You're Out? Constitutional Constraints On Zero Tolerance In Public Education, Eric D. Blumenson, Eva S. Nilsen
Faculty Scholarship
Various studies reported that juvenile crimes of violence fell in the 1990s by as much as 30%. 10 In high schools specifically, the incidence of threatening behavior in 1996 changed little from two decades earlier, 11 with the chances of being killed in school far less than being struck by lighting. 12 The "juvenile crime bomb" proved illusory (as Delulio himself eventually acknowledged 13), but the severe measures designed to deal with it remain entrenched. Zero tolerance has taken on a life of its own, partly because public misperception remains high, 14 and partly because in our hardheaded times …
Sociological And Human Developmental Explanations Of Crime: Conflict Or Consensus , Deborah W. Denno
Sociological And Human Developmental Explanations Of Crime: Conflict Or Consensus , Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
This paper examines multidisciplinary correlates of delinquency in an attempt to integrate sociological and environmental theories of crime with human developmental and biological explanations of crime. Structural equation models are applied to assess links among biological, psychological, and environmental variables collected prospectively from birth through age 17 on a sample of 800 black children at high risk for learning and behavioral disorders. Results show that for both males and females, aggression and disciplinary problems in school during adolescence are the strongest predictors of repeat offense behavior. Whereas school achievement and family income and stability are also significant predictors of delinquency …
Impact Of A Youth Service Center, Deborah W. Denno
Impact Of A Youth Service Center, Deborah W. Denno
Faculty Scholarship
This study evaluates the impact of a Youth Service Center (YSC) in South Philadelphia, using methods which consider both the Center's goals and relevant developments within its target area. The YSC is a delinquency-prevention program housed in the South Philadelphia Community Center (SPCC), a general recreation facility which evolved from the Philadelphia Boys' Club in 1974. The YSC program was added in June 1975 to "prevent and limit youth from becoming involved in the Juvenile Justice System, police courts, and institutions". Program referrals comprise area youths between the ages of 10 and 18 who have been arrested and are in …