Law Commons^™

Prosecutorial Discretion And The Neglect Of Juvenile Shielding Statutes, Andrea L. Dennis

Scholarly Works

When legislatures enact statutes, furtherance of legislative intent depends on the behavior of actors in the executive and judicial branches of government. In the criminal justice system, prosecutors may frustrate legislative intent when they exercise prosecutorial discretion. This Article examines an instance in which prosecutors’ choices work to the detriment of children.

This Article reviews the failure of juvenile shielding statutes to take hold in the prosecution of cases involving child witnesses because of prosecutors’ discretionary decisions not to use these statutes. The Article investigates prosecutors’ pragmatic and doctrinal justifications for not utilizing juvenile shielding statutes and concludes that the …

Death Is Not So Different After All: Graham V. Florida And The Court's "Kids Are Different" Eighth Amendment Jurisprudence, Mary E. Berkheiser

Scholarly Works

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 Amendment. With that ruling, the Court erected a categorical bar to incarcerating forever those not yet adults at the time …