Juvenile Law Commons^™

From Jailbird To Jailbait: Age Of Consent Law And The Construction Of Teenage Sexualities, Kate Sutherland

Kate Sutherland

No abstract provided.

Appealing To Empathy: Counsel's Obligation To Present Mitigating Evidence For Juveniles In Adult Court, Beth Caldwell

Maine Law Review

Media representations of youth as “superpredators” and “monsters” fuel public fear of juvenile offenders. These depictions infiltrate public consciousness and promote widespread misconceptions about the prevalence of youth crime and the nature of juvenile delinquents. In public discourse, youth who break the law are characterized as hardened criminals who will continue to prey upon innocent victims unless they are incarcerated. However, a closer examination of the life stories of young people who commit serious crimes reveals histories characterized a lawyer’s job is to uncover these stories and to tell them in a compelling way. The effective presentation of mitigating ...

Pushing The Limits: Reining In Ohio's Residency Restrictions For Sex Offenders, Taurean J. Shattuck

Cleveland State Law Review

The danger to children posed by convicted sex offenders living near schools, parks, and bus stops has been greatly exaggerated by the media. In turn, many state legislatures have attempted to find solutions to this perceived problem, imposing sanctions that seem to keep the "problem" at bay. A relatively new approach prevents those convicted of sex crimes from living within a certain distance of places where children congregate. Ohio is one of the states that has adopted this approach. The problem with this approach, however, is that imposing such restrictions on all individuals convicted of certain crimes imposes barriers to ...

Inconsistencies In Combatting The Sex Trafficking Of Minors: Backpage’S Deceptive Business Practices Should Not Be Immune From State Law Claims, Jacqueline Hackler

Seattle University Law Review

Under federal law, the CDA has created a loophole for pimps and johns to exploit minors through the Internet. This Note uses Backpage as an example of how interactive computer services consistently evade liability under the current language of the CDA, and examines the need for an amendment to the language of the CDA. This Note argues that an interactive computer service should be held responsible under state law if it helps create the content, thus becoming an “information content provider” under the CDA. Part I provides the groundwork for what sex trafficking is and its relationship to prostitution. Additionally ...

The Role Of Law In Educational Decision Making, John H. Vanderzell, Donald W. Dowd, Matthew W. Finkin, Mark R. Shedd

Donald W. Dowd

No abstract provided.

The New Unconstitutionality Of Juvenile Sex Offender Registration: Suspending The Presumption Of Constitutionality For Laws That Burden Juvenile Offenders, Spencer Klein

Michigan Law Review

In Smith v. Doe, the Supreme Court held that Alaska’s sex offender registration and notification statute did not constitute punishment and was therefore not susceptible to challenge under the Ex Post Facto Clause. In reaching that conclusion, the Court looked to the seven factors articulated in Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez. To evaluate those factors, the Court applied a presumption of constitutionality, conducting the sort of narrow factual inquiry characteristic of rational basis review. Since Smith, courts have disagreed as to whether sex offender laws are punitive when applied to juveniles, and the Supreme Court has not yet addressed the issue ...

A Guide To Juvenile Appellate Practice In Maine, University Of Maine School Of Law

Juvenile Justice Clinic

In Maine, juvenile appeals are governed by the Maine Juvenile Code and the Maine Rules of Appellate Procedure. The Juvenile Code broadly dictates the types of rulings that a juvenile may appeal, and the Appellate Rules set out the details of how the appeal must proceed in the Law Court.

The Juvenile Code divides appealable rulings into five categories: adjudications, dispositions, detention orders, orders of deferred disposition, and bind-over orders.[1] An adjudication is appealable to the Law Court by right, as long as the appeal is taken after an order of disposition.[2] An order of disposition or any ...

A.J. V. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 28 (June 1, 2017), Briana Martinez

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

NRS 62C.240 is triggered when circumstances surrounding a juvenile’s arrest plainly demonstrate that the juvenile was arrested for prostitution or solicitation even if the juvenile is charged with offenses other than prostitution or solicitation.

In Re D.T., 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 23 (May 25, 2017), Karson Bright

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Nevada Supreme Court held that the juvenile court properly certified a juvenile as an adult because the seriousness of his offense and his prior adjudications outweighed the subjective factors in Seven Minors. Additionally, the Court held that a court’s certification of cognitively impaired juveniles for adult proceedings does not offend the Eighth Amendment.

Ask Versus Tell: Potential Confusion When Child Witnesses Are Questioned About Conversastions, Stacia N. Stolzenberg, Kelly Mcwilliams, Thomas D. Lyon

University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series

Children’s potential confusion between “ask” and “tell” can lead to misunderstandings when child witnesses are asked to report prior conversations. The verbs distinguish both between interrogating and informing and between requesting and commanding. Children’s understanding was examined using both field (i.e., Study 1) and laboratory (i.e., Studies 2-4) methods. Study 1 examined 100 5- to 12-year-olds’ trial testimony in child sexual abuse cases, and found that potentially ambiguous use of ask and tell was common, typically found in yes/no questions that elicited unelaborated answers, and virtually never clarified by attorneys or child witnesses. Studies 2-4 ...

Juvenile Miranda Waivers: A Reasonable Alternative To The Totality Of The Circumstances Approach

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Challenging The Credibility Of Alleged Victims Of Child Sexual Abuse In Scottish Courts, Zsofia Szojka, Samantha J. Andrews, Michael E. Lamb, Stacia N. Stolzenberg, Thomas D. Lyon

University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series

This study examined the effects of credibility-challenging questions (n = 2,729) on 62 5- to 17-year-olds’ testimony in child sexual abuse cases in Scotland by categorizing the type, source, and content of the credibility-challenging questions defence lawyers asked and assessing how children responded. Credibility-challenging questions comprised 14.9% of all questions asked during cross-examination. Of defence lawyers’ credibility-challenging questions, 77.8% focused generally on children’s honesty, whereas the remainder referred to specific inconsistencies in the children’s testimony. Children resisted credibility challenges 54% of the time, significantly more often than they provided compliant responses (26.8%). The tendency to ...

Pragmatic Failure And Referential Ambiguity When Attorneys Ask Child Witnesses "Do You Know/Remember" Questions, Angela D. Evans, Stacia N. Stolzenberg, Thomas D. Lyon

University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series

“Do you know” and “Do you remember” (DYK/R) questions explicitly ask whether one knows or remembers some information while implicitly asking for that information. This study examined how 104 4- to 9-year-old children testifying in child sexual abuse cases responded to DYK/R wh- and yes/no questions. When asked DYK/R questions containing an implicit wh- question requesting information, children often provided unelaborated “Yes” responses. Attorneys’ follow-up questions suggested that children usually misunderstood the pragmatics of the questions. When DYK/R questions contained an implicit yes/no question, unelaborated “Yes” or “No” responses could be responding to the ...

Kids Will Be Kids: Time For A "Reasonable Child" Standard For The Proof Of Objective Mens Rea Elements, Christopher M. Northrop, Kristina R. Rozan

Maine Law Review

In a line of recent cases that have rocked the world of juvenile law, the Supreme Court relied on the latest brain science research with the timeless knowledge of parents to state forcefully and repeatedly that children are more impetuous, more vulnerable to outside pressures, less depraved, and less culpable for their actions than adults are. Yet criminal statutes refer to the “reasonable person” standard, which does not take into account the age of the accused as the benchmark for guilt or innocence. In doing so, we hold children to an irrelevant and arguably unfairly demanding behavioral ideal, and criminalize ...

Agree To Disagree: Moving Tennessee Toward Pure No-Fault Divorce, Evan Wright

Lincoln Memorial University Law Review

This Note addresses Tennessee's no-fault divorce statute. Currently, married couples are forced to either agree on all issues or prove at least one fault ground. This author contends that the current law imposes an unnecessary burden on litigants, which wastes precious resources that Tennessee families could use for more productive purposes. Moreover, pure no-fault states have not seen a disproportionate rise in divorce rates. Last, pure no-fault divorce better reflects current societal trends and the evolving effect of religious affiliation on how a younger generation defines morality.

“Hurdling” Gender Identity Discrimination: The Implications Of State Participation Policies On Transgender Youth Athletes’ Ability To Thrive, Kayla L. Acklin

Boston College Journal of Law & Social Justice

The number of students, in grades kindergarten through high school, who identify as transgender has steadily increased during the last decade. These students seek the same opportunities as their cisgender peers, but are often denied participation in athletic activities because of their non-conforming gender-behavior. Currently, there is no federal law governing transgender participation in sports, which has resulted in an inconsistency among state athletic associations’ participation policies; the vast majority of states restricts participation. These states are limiting transgender students’ ability to receive the benefits that sports provide. To solve this inconsistency and provide equal opportunity for transgender students, this ...

O'Keeffe V. Ireland: The State's Obligation To Protect Children From Sexual Assault In State Schools, Heekyoung Lee

Boston College International and Comparative Law Review

Ireland’s unique primary education system creates a national school system that is denominational, yet state-financed. The Irish government defers managerial duties to the Catholic Church, and this deference of duties relieves Ireland from liability. As a result, students in Ireland attending primary schools historically were not guaranteed legal protection from sexual assaults committed by faculty members. On January 28, 2014, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights held in O’Keeffe v. Ireland that despite Ireland’s delegation of authority to religious denominations, the State was obligated to protect students from sexual assaults. The court reasoned ...

The Effects Of The Hypothetical Putative Confession And Negatively-Valenced Yes/No Questions On Maltreated And Non-Maltreated Children's Dislcosure Of A Minor Transgression, Stacia N. Stolzenberg, Kelly Mcwilliams, Thomas D. Lyon

University of Southern California Legal Studies Working Paper Series

This study examined the effects of the hypothetical putative confession (telling children “What if I said that [the suspect] told me everything that happened and he wants you to tell the truth?”) and negatively-valenced yes/no questions varying in their explicitness (“Did [toy] break?” vs. “Did something bad happen to the [toy]?”) on 206 4- to 9-year-old maltreated and non-maltreated children’s reports, half of whom had experienced toy breakage and had been admonished to keep the breakage a secret. The hypothetical putative confession increased the likelihood that children disclosed breakage without increasing false reports. The yes/no questions elicited ...

Systemic Governmental Recalcitrance In Regulating Confidentiality Under The Child Abuse, Prevention & Treatment Act (Capta): A Case Study, William Wesley Patton

Journal of Legislation

In 2003, Congress amended the Child Abuse, Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) to provide states with more flexibility in designing open child dependency hearings. The Federal Children’s Bureau has interpreted those amendments as a congressional waiver of CAPTA confidentiality in open court proceedings, and there-fore, currently tens of millions of abused and neglected children no longer have federal protection from being re-traumatized by disclosure of confidential CAPTA child welfare case information. This article demonstrates that the Children’s Bureau’s statutory interpretation is inconsistent with congressional intent and that states are still mandated to reasonably prevent the republication of ...

The Racialization Of Juvenile Justice And The Role Of The Defense Attorney, Tamar R. Birckhead

Boston College Law Review

The existence of structural racism is not new. In fact, as the second decade of the twenty-first century comes to a close, there is evidence of a national political openness to acknowledging the phenomenon. This Article seizes upon this openness as it seeks to provide a fuller understanding of how structural racism operates within a branch of the criminal justice system that is often overlooked—the juvenile justice system. The Article offers a definition of racialization that acknowledges its multi-dimensional and fluid nature and the ways it is perpetuated via juvenile court rhetoric, processing, and procedure. It demonstrates how the ...