Juvenile Law Commons^™

The Miller Revolution, Cara H. Drinan

Scholarly Articles

In a series of cases culminating in Miller v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court has limited the extent to which juveniles may be exposed to the harshest criminal sentences. Scholars have addressed discrete components of these recent Court decisions, from their Eighth Amendment methodology to their effect upon state legislation. In this Article, I draw upon that scholarship to make a broader claim: the Miller trilogy has revolutionized juvenile justice. While we have begun to see only the most inchoate signs of this revolution in practice, this Article endeavors to describe what this revolution may look like both in …