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Full-Text Articles in Law

Toward A Just System For Juveniles, Karl A. Racine, Elizabeth Wilkins Mar 2019

Toward A Just System For Juveniles, Karl A. Racine, Elizabeth Wilkins

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Each year as a nation we prosecute over 800,000 children-nearly three percent of the juvenile population2 and detain over 200,000 of them.3 That is, we saddle almost three percent of our youth with the experience of being a defendant in court, with the label of delinquency. And we separate over a quarter of those youth from family and community for some period of time. The overwhelming majority of these children have experienced life-altering trauma in their young lives, and these experiences with the juvenile justice system can exacerbate that trauma.4 Yet,while we are affecting our young people on this massive …


Reversing The School-To-Prison Pipeline: Initial Findings From The District Of Columbia On The Efficacy Of Training And Mobilizing Court-Appointed Lawyers To Use Special Education Advocacy On Behalf Of At-Risk Youth, Kylie Scholefield, Joseph B. Tulman Mar 2015

Reversing The School-To-Prison Pipeline: Initial Findings From The District Of Columbia On The Efficacy Of Training And Mobilizing Court-Appointed Lawyers To Use Special Education Advocacy On Behalf Of At-Risk Youth, Kylie Scholefield, Joseph B. Tulman

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

This article will describe the implementation and analyze the results of an attorney training and mobilizing project of the Juvenile and Special Education Law Clinic (Clinic) 1 of the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law (UDC-DCSL).2 This project was premised in part on the notion that many of the children caught in the District of Columbia's school-to-prison pipeline have disabilities that significantly affect their ability to learn, and that many of these children therefore encounter, more than other children, conflict with school personnel and failure in school. These children disproportionately repeat grades, face school …


The Continuing Work Of The Bellow Scholars, Jeanne Charn Mar 2015

The Continuing Work Of The Bellow Scholars, Jeanne Charn

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

In November 2010, the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law hosted the fourth Bellow Scholar Workshop and subsequently published the work of two Bellow Scholars in Volume 16 of the UDC Law Review.1 I was privileged to contribute a foreword to Volume 16 in which I commented on thelegacy of my late husband, Gary Bellow, and offered a brief narrative of the origins of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Clinical Section's Bellow Scholar program.2 Most of the earliest Bellow Scholars had worked with Gary or had taken his courses. We understood that …


(Re-)Grasping The Opportunity Interest: Lehr V. Robertson And The Terminated Parent, Lashanda Taylor Adams Jan 2015

(Re-)Grasping The Opportunity Interest: Lehr V. Robertson And The Terminated Parent, Lashanda Taylor Adams

Journal Articles

In 1997, an Ohio court terminated Peggy Fugate’s parental rights to her sixyear-old daughter, Selina. At the time, Ms. Fugate, an incarcerated drug abuser, did not fight the order, believing her daughter would be adopted into a clean, stable home.1 However, Selina was never adopted. For the next seven years, Selina had trouble with the police and ran away from her foster home numerous times. While Selina’s life was going downhill in many respects, her mother was rehabilitating. She entered recovery, married, obtained full-time employment and was living in stable housing with enough room for her daughter. Recognizing the strides …


The Unreviewable Irredeemable Child: Why The District Of Columbia Needs Reverse Waiver, Jamie Stevens Mar 2014

The Unreviewable Irredeemable Child: Why The District Of Columbia Needs Reverse Waiver, Jamie Stevens

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

In 2005 the U.S. Department of Justice estimated that adult criminal courts prosecuted 23,000 cases involving defendants under the age of eighteen nationwide. 2 This means that those defendants faced conviction and sentencing in adult courts. Transfer of those under eighteen into adult criminal court has become the states' first line of defense in the fight against youth crime. However, recent Supreme Court decisions have cast doubt on the wisdom, and even the constitutionality of that approach. Roper v. Simmons held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty for anyone under eighteen years of age. 3 Graham v. Florida …


The Other Missouri Model: Systemic Juvenile Injustice In The Show-Me State, Mae C, Quinn Jan 2013

The Other Missouri Model: Systemic Juvenile Injustice In The Show-Me State, Mae C, Quinn

Journal Articles

For years Missouri has been touted as a model for juvenile justice. Stakeholders and commentators continually declare that the Show-Me State – with its “Missouri Model” – employs the most modern and innovative ap-proaches when it comes to treatment of court-involved youth. This account is reflected in press coverage, television news shows, and agency white papers. But this is only part of the picture; there is much more happening in Missouri when it comes to juveniles. However, this “other” part of the story seldom has been openly discussed – until now.1. This Article seeks to contrast the rosy picture painted …


Giving Kids Their Due: Theorizing A Modern Fourteenth Amendment Framework For Juvenile Defense Representation, Mae C. Quinn Jan 2013

Giving Kids Their Due: Theorizing A Modern Fourteenth Amendment Framework For Juvenile Defense Representation, Mae C. Quinn

Journal Articles

This Essay advocates expansion of the right to and role of juvenile-defense counsel under the Fourteenth Amendment as articulated by the Supreme Court in In re Gault. It makes this move in light of the evolution of juvenile-court practices over time and modern understandings of adolescent development principles. In doing so it takes a different approach than many advocates and academics who have called for greater reliance on the concepts established in Gideon v. Wainwright and its progeny, relating to the right to and role of counsel in adult-criminal proceedings. Instead it suggests that standards of representation for juveniles must …


Changing The Narrative: Convincing Courts To Distinguish Between Misbehavior And Criminal Conduct In School Referral Cases, Marsha L. Levick, Robert G. Schwartz Dec 2007

Changing The Narrative: Convincing Courts To Distinguish Between Misbehavior And Criminal Conduct In School Referral Cases, Marsha L. Levick, Robert G. Schwartz

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.


Clear And Convincing Evidence: The Standard Required To Support Pretrial Detention Of Juveniles Pursuant To D.C. Code Section 16-2310, Julia Colton-Bell, Robert J. Levant Sep 1995

Clear And Convincing Evidence: The Standard Required To Support Pretrial Detention Of Juveniles Pursuant To D.C. Code Section 16-2310, Julia Colton-Bell, Robert J. Levant

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

This Note examines the appropriate evidentiary standard for pretrial detention decisions in Juvenile Court in the District of Columbia. Currently, there is no authority mandating the standard of proof that is to be applied to the pretrial detention of juveniles. To ensure that all juveniles receive the same protections, one evidentiary standard must be applied at all pretrial detention hearings. Based upon adult and juvenile pretrial detention statutes, the case law construing those statutes, and the standard courts employ in adult civil commitment procedures, the appropriate standard is the "clear and convincing evidence" standard of proof. In order to afford …


The Right Of Children In The Juvenile Justice System To Inclusion In The Federally Mandated Child Welfare Services System, Jeanne Asherman-Jusino Sep 1995

The Right Of Children In The Juvenile Justice System To Inclusion In The Federally Mandated Child Welfare Services System, Jeanne Asherman-Jusino

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

The District of Columbia has one of the highest juvenile detention rates and the longest juvenile detention stays of any jurisdiction in the country.' Almost half of the children in Oak Hill, the District's secure juvenile detention facility, have no record of violent or serious offenses. 2 The District's large scale use of detention has increased, rather than decreased, crime. By placing young children charged with minor offenses, such as shoplifting, in daily contact with habitual violent juvenile offenders, Oak Hill serves as a training school for criminal behavior.3


Substituting Secure Detention For Shelter Care: An Illegal Deprivation Of Liberty, Susan M. Johlie Sep 1995

Substituting Secure Detention For Shelter Care: An Illegal Deprivation Of Liberty, Susan M. Johlie

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

Judges sitting on the Superior Court of the District of Columbia routinely order children into secure detention who require no more restrictive confinement than that provided by shelter care. Despite a statutory presumption against detention, and a superior court rule that prohibits substituting secure detention for shelter care,' the District inappropriately places children into secure detention simply because there is a lack of bed space in youth shelter houses. The deprivation of liberty that occurs when a juvenile is placed in secure detention rather than shelter care is required neither for the protection of the community nor for the welfare …


Juvenile Detention Law In The District Of Columbia: A Practitioner's Guide, Milton Lee, John Copacino, Paul Holland Sep 1995

Juvenile Detention Law In The District Of Columbia: A Practitioner's Guide, Milton Lee, John Copacino, Paul Holland

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.