Law Commons^™

The Supreme Court And The Transformation Of Juvenile Sentencing, Elizabeth S. Scott, Thomas Grisso, Marsha Levick, Laurence Steinberg

Faculty Scholarship

In the past decade, the Supreme Court has transformed the constitutional landscape of juvenile crime regulation. In three strongly worded opinions, the Court held that imposing harsh criminal sentences on juvenile offenders violates the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. In combination, these cases create a special status for juveniles under Eighth Amendment doctrine as a category of offenders whose culpability is mitigated by their youth and immaturity, even for the most serious offenses. The Court also emphasized that juveniles are more likely to reform than adult offenders, and that most should be given a meaningful opportunity to …

You’Ve Come A Long Way, Baby: Two Waves Of Juvenile Justice Reforms As Seen From Jena, Louisiana, Sara Sun Beale

Faculty Scholarship

This article describes the origins and impact of two modern reforms that dramatically rewrote the law governing the prosecution of juvenile offenders: the Warren Court’s due process decisions and the juvenile justice legislation of the 1990s. Beginning with the prosecution of Mychal Bell, who was one of the Jena 6, the article provides a broader historical and analytical framework to assess the procedural protections available to juveniles charged with serious offenses, particularly the adequacy of the remedies to challenge prosecutorial discretion and disparate treatment by the prosecution.

The article first describes the key role race played in the Warren Court’s …