Law Commons^™

Deinstitutionalization, Family Reunification, And The "Best Interests Of The Child": An Examination Of Armenia's Child Protection Obligations Under Conventional International Law, George S. Yacoubian Jr., Esq.

Pace International Law Review

For nearly a century, the global community has sought to afford children legal protections, abandoning widely held views that children were pecuniary assets. In the United States and globally, a nascent children’s rights movement culminated in broad child welfare reform. Whether adoption, armed conflict, child labor, education, human trafficking, or deinstitutionalization, the post-war 20th century witnessed an evolution of international child protections. The prevailing standard of “best interests of the child” (BIC) has been incorporated into domestic and international law doctrine and, not surprisingly, has been operationalized in a variety of ways. In recent years, the standard has been explored …

The Concrete Jungle: Where Dreams Are Made Of . . . And Now Where Children Are Protected, Samantha A. Mumola

Pace Law Review

The tragic and unsettling story of Kalief Browder has notably emerged as a prominent illustration of our criminal justice system’s historical failure to protect our youth. Kalief’s story gained massive media attention with the help of a TIME documentary series featured on Netflix and famous A-listers such as music artist Jay-Z and TV host Rosie O’Donnell. It is hard to ignore the fact that Kalief Browder was cheated by the system; he chose suicide to escape his demons, which developed after undeserved time spent at Riker’s – a place he would have never experienced had he initially been tried as …

Representing The Child In Child Protective Proceedings: Toward A New Paradigm, Merril Sobie

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article will attempt a new approach, one based on an analysis of the child's interests in a child protective proceeding. As will be discussed in Part 1, most interests are surprisingly overlooked or barely articulated in the representation debate. Part 2 will summarize the statutes and case law governing the role of the child's counsel in the child protective litigation continuum. The frequently lengthy process may range from initiation by a child protective agency to the achievement of family reunification or other permanency goal. For children, the continuum of sequential proceeding may span years or decades. Finally, Part 3 …

The State Of American Juvenile Justice, Merril Sobie

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article will summarize the major twenty-first century state legislative and case law developments. It will also briefly note the expansion of state and local initiatives limiting the prosecution of youthful offenders, such as diversion and restorative justice programs.

The state of American juvenile justice has improved significantly in the past several years. However, the reforms are best viewed as a work in progress. Much has been accomplished, but much remains to be accomplished. Crucially, after a generation of “tough on kids” measures, we are on the road toward a true “justice” system for children.

Juveniles Make Bad Decisions, But Are Not Adults & Law Continues To Account For This Difference: The Supreme Court’S Decision To Apply Miller V. Alabama Retroactively Will Have A Significant Impact On Many Decades Of Reform And Current Debate Around Juvenile Sentencing, Danielle Petretta

Pace Law Review

In January 2016, the Supreme Court made a monumental decision, reflecting the notion that juveniles are not adults. For years, courts have been grappling with the notion that juveniles are not adults. The Supreme Court has finally published an opinion that will have extreme implications on the juvenile justice system.

Part I of this Note will discuss the birth of the juvenile justice system. Part II of this Note will briefly introduce the recent oral argument heard before the Supreme Court regarding whether the Supreme Court will apply Miller v. Alabama retroactively or non-retroactively. Part III will discuss the history …

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

Pace Law Review

Many people believe that juvenile adjudications of delinquency are automatically expunged upon the youth reaching the age of majority. In reality, a juvenile adjudication of delinquency—especially for a felony—can significantly limit a teenager’s future ability to obtain student loans and scholarships, join the military, participate in athletics, become a firefighter or a law enforcement officer or obtain one of many jobs. As discussed herein, the majority of youth facing charges in delinquency court are suffering from severe socio-economic deprivation, are victims of emotional, physical or sexual abuse, or have serious mental health issues. Many youth caught up in the delinquency …

The Elimination Of Child “Custody” Litigation: Using Business Branding Techniques To Transform Social Behavior, Elena B. Langan

Pace Law Review

This article discusses how rebranding principles, already being used to alter social behavior in other non-consumer contexts, could be utilized to accomplish the legislative goal to reduce litigation as well as diminish animosity in custody cases. Part II of this article discusses the impetus for a transformation in the way parents view custody disputes. Part III discusses basic branding principles and how companies establish a brand and can successfully change their branding. Part IV explores the evolution of the current custody brand, identifies eight states that have eliminated “custody” and, in some cases, “visitation” from their vernacular, and discusses, in …

The Dimming Light Of The Idea: The Need To Reevaluate The Definition Of A Free Appropriate Public Education, Sarah Lusk

Pace Law Review

This paper has five parts. Part I examines Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”), explains the definition of a free appropriate public education (“FAPE”), and explores IDEA’s protections for special-education students facing school discipline. Part II discusses the Supreme Court’s interpretation of IDEA and FAPE, as well as how lower courts have interpreted IDEA. Part III focuses on how schools implement IDEA and treat special-education students. Part IV explores the disproportionate effects of school suspension on disabled students and explains the negative impacts, such as the Pipeline. Part V argues that Congress and the Supreme Court must reevaluate what constitutes …

Babies Behind Bars: An Evaluation Of Prison Nurseries In American Female Prisons And Their Potential Constitutional Challenges, Seham Elmalak

Pace Law Review

This note opens the prison doors and delves into the United States female prison system, primarily focusing on the positive and negative impact of nursery programs on mothers and children, along with potential constitutional claims that can be brought against these programs. Part I provides a general background about the American prison system, and briefly touches on the constitutional standards of prisoners’ rights. It also discusses the history and development of female prisons and illustrates the rapid increase of female incarceration. Part II focuses on the prevalence of mothers within the female population in prisons. Part III introduces prison nursery …

Criminal Mind Or Inculpable Adolescence? A Glimpse At The History, Failures, And Required Changes Of The American Juvenile Correction System, Christopher J. Menihan

Pace Law Review

This Comment provides an historical analysis of the principles, understandings and laws that have formed and altered the American juvenile correction system. Part I offers an historical synopsis of the societal understanding that juvenile offenders are less culpable than their adult counterparts and explains the process by which this concept came to permeate early American common law. By discussing the early nineteenth-century juvenile correction reformation movement and the cases that followed, Part I also illustrates the development and early failures of the American juvenile correction system. Part II explains the history of juvenile waiver laws, from their early presence in …

Show And Tell?: Students' Personal Lives, Schools, And Parents, Emily Gold Waldman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Public schools learn about their students' personal lives in many ways. Some are passive: a teacher observes a student kissing someone, or overhears a conversation among friends. But schools also engage in more active information-gathering about students' personal lives, through surveys and informal conversations between students and teachers, administrators, school psychologists, counselors, coaches, and other personnel. This Article explores the competing privacy considerations that result from such encounters. Once schools have learned highly personal information about their students, does it violate those students' privacy rights to disclose that information to their parents? Or does keeping the information secret violate the …

Rethinking The Childhood-Adult Divide: Meeting The Mental Health Needs Of Emerging Adults, Barbara L. Atwell

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Part I of this article describes ADHD and explores the extent of ADHD medication abuse, especially among young adults. Part II discusses the characteristics of emerging adults, who may be more likely than their older counterparts to make unwise decisions about medications and other life choices.34 While we protect minors by requiring parental consent for their medical treatments, emerging adults are effectively able to obtain any drug on the market if they convince the doctor that they have the requisite diagnosis. Part III explores HIPAA, the medical malpractice standard of care and the challenges associated with a society that is …

Why Full Implementation Is Long Overdue, Merril Sobie

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

In 1980, the American Bar Association (ABA) promulgated a far-reaching comprehensive body of Juvenile Justice Standards, thereby providing a blueprint for the reform of a system that had serious deficiencies. Developed in partnership with the Institute of Judicial Administration (IJA) at New York University, the standards address the entire juvenile justice continuum, from police handling and intake to adjudication, disposition, juvenile corrections, and ancillary functions. Approximately 300 professionals collaborated for a decade to produce the 23 volumes approved by the ABA House of Delegates.

To this day, the standards remain relevant and reformist. Several have been implemented in whole or …

Are Mothers Hazardous To Their Children’S Health?: Law, Culture, And The Framing Of Risk, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines the psychosocial processes of risk construction and explores how these processes intersect with core principles of Anglo-American law. It does so by critiquing current cultural and legal perceptions that mothers, especially pregnant women, pose a risk to their children’s health. The Article’s core argument is that during the last four decades, both American society and American law have increasingly come to view mothers as a primary source of risk to children. This intense focus on the threat of maternal harm ignores significant environmental sources of injury, including fathers and other men, as well as exposure to toxic …

Sex, Science, And The Age Of Anxiety, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article examines the question of whether the HPV vaccine should be mandated (for girls and/or boys) in the context of declining rates of childhood immunization, and the potential threat to public health that this decline poses. The article addresses two interconnected legal issues: first, is mandating vaccines to prevent the spread of disease constitutional under substantive due process and equal protection principles, and second, should parents be permitted to “opt out” of mandatory vaccination on their children’s behalf, either for all vaccines or those which prevent particular diseases. The article addresses these issues in the context of America’s growing …

Protecting Children? The Evolution Of The First Amendment: A Historical Timeline Of Children And Their Access To Pornography And Violence, Nicole Digiose

Pace Law Review

This paper will explore the evolving relationship between children and their access to potentially harmful materials. The timeline will start at Part II.A with the landmark decision of Prince v. Massachusetts, a 1940’s case, wherein children were afforded the most constitutional protection. In Part II.B, this paper will evaluate another landmark decision: Ginsberg v. New York. In this 1968 case, the Supreme Court declared that children shall not have access to harmful, pornographic materials. By the 1990s, there appeared to be a notable shift in how the Supreme Court decided cases pertaining to children and their access to …

From Peer-To-Peer Networks To Cloud Computing: How Technology Is Redefining Child Pornography Laws, Audrey Rogers

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article traces the history of the child pornography laws and sentencing policy in Part I. Part II explains the technologies that have caused some of the current controversies, and then Part III describes how these technologies have blurred the offenses. Finally, Part IV makes suggestions as to how the law could better reflect technology and comport with a refined harm rationale. Courts, legal scholars, and medical experts have explained the harm includes the sexual abuse captured in the images and the psychological injury the victim endures knowing the images are being viewed. This Article further develops the harm rationale …

Is There A Legal Recourse Available In New York When The Press Fails To Protect The Identity Of A Child Abuse Victim?, John H. Wilson

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Delinquent “Toddler”, Merril Sobie

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Twenty-first century juvenile justice jurisprudence has focused on the criminal responsibility of adolescents, including, notably, the interface between psychological and neurological development and social accountability. The focus has led to a growing awareness that teenagers should not be equated with or held as accountable as adults. For example, several states, including Connecticut, Illinois, and Mississippi, have raised the age of criminal responsibility from 16 or 17 to 18, with a corresponding expansion of juvenile court jurisdiction. Of potentially greater significance, the principle of diminished criminal responsibility has gained credibility. Witness, for example, the US Supreme Court holding that capital punishment …

Nature And Nurture: Revisiting The Infant Adoption Process, Barbara L. Atwell

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Adopted children constitute approximately two percent of the United States' childhood population, but are disproportionately represented in mental health settings, where they make up an estimated four to fifteen percent of the population. Science suggests that for those adopted at birth, this discrepancy may be due in part to their abrupt removal from the biological parents. We are now beginning to understand the importance of the bonding that takes place in utero and the infant's awareness at birth. This article suggests three changes to the infant adoption process to align it with scientific knowledge. First, all adults involved in the …

Children At War: The Criminal Responsibility Of Child Soldiers, Megan Nobert

Pace International Law Review Online Companion

The problem of child soldiers is not going to go away. While it may not be a popular solution, child soldiers need to be prosecuted for the actions they commit during conflicts in addition to the prosecution of child soldier recruiters. Without legal ramifications, there is no incentive for the child soldier recruiters to stop their actions. This article explores how both child soldiers and their recruiters can be prosecuted for actions committed during conflict.

The Ethical Dilemma Of A Special Education Lawyer: Who Is The Client?, Jillian Petrera

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Pity The Child: The Age Of Delinquency In New York, Merril Sobie

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

“Sexting” And The First Amendment, John A. Humbach

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

“Sexting” and other teen autopornography are becoming a widespread phenomenon, with perhaps 20% of teenagers admitting to producing nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves and an ever greater proportion, perhaps as many as 50%, having received such pictures from friends and classmates. It is, moreover, beginning to result in criminal prosecutions. Given the reality of changing social practices, mores and technology utilization, today’s pornography laws are a trap for unwary teens and operate, in effect, to criminalize a large fraction of America’s young people. As such, these laws and prosecutions represent a stark example of the contradictions that can occur …

Megan's Law And Sarah's Law: A Comparative Study Of Sex Offender Community Notification Schemes In The United States And The United Kingdom, Lissa Griffin

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The United Kingdom developed a sex offender register and Sarah's Law' in an effort to keep communities safe from sex offenders. However, Sarah's Law is quite different from Megan's Law, particularly because there is no direct public access to the United Kingdom's Sex Offender Register. Part II of this article analyzes the history of sex offender registration and community notification under Megan's Law in the United States. Part III examines the United Kingdom's approach to sex offender registration and community notification via Sarah's Law. Part IV explores the distinctly different approaches to community notification in the United States and the …

Regulating Student Speech: Suppression Versus Punishment, Emily Gold Waldman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article examines the Supreme Court’s student speech framework and argues that, in focusing exclusively on the types of student speech that can be restricted, the framework fails to build in any differentiation as to how such speech can be restricted. This is true even though there are two very distinct types of speech restrictions in schools: suppression of the speech itself; and after-the-fact punishment of the student speaker. As the student speech landscape itself gets more complex – given schools’ experimentation with new disciplinary regimes along with the tremendous rise in student cyber-speech – the blurring of that distinction …

Keeping Promises To Immigrant Youth, Theo S. Liebmann

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Protecting Children On The Internet: Mission Impossible?, Audrey Rogers

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article posits that the Williams Court properly upheld Congress' shift in focus from the images to the speech pandering them. The majority ruled that the inability to complete a crime because of a factual error is not a defense. Its reasoning should lay to rest lingering claims that child protection statutes require an actual child. Nevertheless, the Article explains that the Williams dissent essentially relied on legal impossibility in its finding that the PROTECT Act's pandering provision was unconstitutionally overbroad. In so doing, the dissent reflects the reluctance of many to accept the extent to which adults are seeking …

Child Pornography's Forgotten Victims, Audrey Rogers

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

Child Pornography's Forgotten Victims, Audrey Rogers

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate that possession of child pornography is not a victimless crime. It will illustrate the problem and explain the harm suffered by its victims. It will then trace factors that may have contributed to the perception that possession of child pornography is a victimless offense. The first factor is the dual nature of the child pornography laws that addresses both actual and future harm. When this duality is applied to possessors, their link to actual harm appears attenuated because the possessor is not involved in the acts of sexual abuse inherent in producing …