Criminal Law Commons^™

Washington’S Young Offenders: O’Dell Demands A Change To Sentencing Guidelines, Erika Vranizan

Seattle University Law Review

This Note argues that the O’Dell decision was a watershed moment for criminal justice reform. It argues that the reasoning in O’Dell should be seized upon by the legislature to take action to remediate instances in which defendants are legal adults but do not possess the cognitive characteristics of an adult sufficient to justify adult punishment. Given both the scientific impossibility of identifying a precise age at which characteristics of youthfulness end and adulthood begins and the Court’s repeated recognition that these very factors impact culpability, the current approach to sentencing young offenders aged eighteen to twenty-five as adults simply …

The Invisible Prison: Pathways And Prevention, Margaret F. Brinig, Marsha Garrison

Journal Articles

In this paper, we propose a new strategy for curbing crime and delinquency and demonstrate the inadequacy of current reform efforts. Our analysis relies on our own, original research involving a large, multi-generational sample of unmarried fathers from a rust-belt region of the United States as well as the conclusions of earlier researchers.

Our own research data are unusual in that they are holistic and multigenerational: The Court-based record system we utilized for data collection provided detailed information on child maltreatment, juvenile status and delinquency charges, child support, parenting time, orders of protection, and residential mobility for focal children (the …

The Separation Of Migrant Families At The Border Under The Trump Administration’S Zero-Tolerance Policy: A Critical Analysis Of The Mistreatment Of Immigrant Children Held In U.S. Custody, Dhillon Ramkhelawan

Child and Family Law Journal

This article provides a critical analysis of the Trump Administration’s zero-tolerance policy that separated migrant families at the Southwest United States border from April to June 2018. It will provide a statistical analysis regarding the number of migrant children that were separated from their parents during this time period, and it will describe the poor living conditions that many of these children were subjected to as they waited for their parent’s immigration cases to be decided. Additionally, this article will also critically analyze the United States’ history of mistreating migrant children who started to flee their war-torn countries in Central …

Discipline Or Destiny: A School-To-Prison Pipeline Story, Trayonna Hendricks, Kourtney Webb

Capstones

The school-to-prison pipeline is a phenomenon by which students, mainly students of color, are pushed out of schools and into juvenile detention centers and through the criminal justice system. This documentary series explains and displays what "the school-to-prison pipeline looks like through a personal story.

https://readymag.com/u1985351703/1646028/

From Decarceration To E-Carceration, Chaz Arnett

Cardozo Law Review

Each year, millions of Americans experience criminal justice surveillance through electronic ankle monitors. These devices have fundamentally altered our understanding of incarceration, punishment, and the extent of the carceral state, as they are increasingly offered as moderate penal sanctions and viable solutions to the problem of mass incarceration. They purportedly enable decarceration, albeit with enhanced surveillance in the community as the compromise. Proponents of the devices tout the public safety and cost benefits while stressing the importance of depopulating prisons and returning individuals to theircommunities. In recent years, an oppositional movement has developed, focused on highlighting the social harms of …

Juvenile Life Without Parole: How The Supreme Court Of Ohio Should Interpret Montgomery V. Louisiana, Grace O. Hurley

Cleveland State Law Review

Regardless of the numerous differences between juveniles and adults, some states, including the State of Ohio, continue to impose upon juvenile homicide offenders one of the harshest forms of punishment: life without parole. In 2016, the United States Supreme Court decided Montgomery v. Louisiana, and in doing so, the Court reiterated its previous contention that a sentence of juvenile life without parole should only be imposed upon juvenile homicide offenders whose crimes reflect "irreparable corruption." The Supreme Court of Ohio has yet to apply the Court’s Montgomery decision, but this Note suggests that if it does, the court should …

Awareness Of Sex Offender Registration Policies And Self-Reported Sexual Offending In A Community Sample Of Adolescents, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Hayley M. D. Cleary

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Sex offender registration laws are widely implemented, increasingly restrictive, and intended to serve both specific and general deterrent functions. Most states have some form of policy mechanism to place adolescents on sex offender registries, yet it remains unclear whether adolescents possess the requisite policy awareness to be deterred from sexual offending. This study examined awareness of sex offender registration as a potential sanction and its cross-sectional association with engagement in several registrable sexual behaviors (sexting, indecent exposure, sexual solicitation, and forcible touching) in a community sample of 144 adolescents. Results revealed that many adolescents were unaware that these behaviors could …

Accounting For Adolescents’ Twice Diminished Culpability In California’S Felony Murder Rule, Raychel Teasdale

Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review

In 2018, the California legislature passed S.B. 1437 to narrow California’s felony murder rule and theoretically apply the rule only to those with the greatest culpability in a murder. However, whether intentionally or negligently, the law leaves room to disproportionally and unjustly affect adolescents by charging those with “reckless indifference” with first-degree murder. Imbedded in psychology and neuroscience research is the conclusion that adolescent brain structure and function are still rapidly developing. As a result, adolescents are less able to weigh the risks of their actions, resist peer pressure, regulate their emotions, and control their impulses. Therefore, this Note argues …

See No Evil, Hear No Evil: Applying The Sight And Sound Separation Protection To All Youths Who Are Tried As Adults In The Criminal Justice System, Lauren Knoke

Fordham Law Review

American law treats youths within the criminal justice system with contrasting impulses. In some cases, the law deems youths worthy of special protections and places them within the juvenile justice system. In other situations, however, it views youths as posing distinct dangers and funnels them into justice systems designed for adults. So long as youths remain under the jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system, they are afforded the protections of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA). One of the JJDPA’s core protections, sight and sound separation, aims to prevent youths from having any visual or spoken exchanges with …

The Right To Appointed Counsel: The Case For Unaccompanied Immigrant Children, Amanda Kavita Sewanan

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mental Health Jail Diversion: A Therapeutic Approach To Offending In Twenty-First Century America, Ryan J. Parent

Criminology Student Work

This analysis is concerned with understanding the facets of criminal justice diversion programs that successfully improve the mental wellbeing of participants and, as a subsequent effect, reduce offending amongst the mentally ill populous in the United States. An inquiry of pre-program and post-program data from both adult and juvenile mental health specific programs reveals that participation amongst both groups shows a meaningful reduction in new/repeat offending in comparison to non-participants. The data shows that the expansion of law enforcement Crisis Intervention Team’s (CIT’s) has a compounding effect to the positive results. A review of these programs in Australia indicates that …

Skinning The Cat: How Mandatory Psychiatric Evaluations For Animal Cruelty Offenders Can Prevent Future Violence, Ashley Kunz

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

In 2017, the Texas legislature amended Texas Penal Code § 42.092, which governs acts of cruelty against non-livestock animals. The statute in its current form makes torturing, killing, or seriously injuring a non-livestock animal a third degree felony, while less serious offenses carry either a state jail felony or a Class A misdemeanor charge.

While a step in the right direction, Texas law is not comprehensive in that it fails to address a significant aspect of animal cruelty offenses: mental illness. For over fifteen years, Texas Family Code § 54.0407 has required psychiatric counseling for juveniles convicted of cruelty to …

Discretionary Life Sentences For Juveniles: Resolving The Split Between The Virginia Supreme Court And The Fourth Circuit, Daniel M. Coble

Washington and Lee Law Review Online

At the age of 17, Donte Lamar Jones shot and killed a store clerk as she laid down on the floor during a robbery. He was spared the death penalty by agreeing instead to die in prison at the end of his life. Two years later in Virginia, 12 individuals were murdered for doing nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Those individuals were killed by Lee Malvo and John Muhammad, better known as the “D.C. Snipers.” While John Muhammad was given the death penalty for his heinous crimes, Lee Malvo, who was 17 during …

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 …

In Search Of Juvenile Justice: From Star Chamber To Criminal Court, Hon. Patrick R. Tamilia

Akron Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Dilemma For The Juvenile Justice System, Judith L. Hunter

Akron Law Review

No abstract provided.

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Sentence For The Damned: Using Atkins To Understand The “Irreparable Corruption” Standard For Juvenile Life Without Parole, Zachary Crawford-Pechukas

Washington and Lee Law Review

This Note suggests that guidance should be drawn from the Supreme Court’s death penalty jurisprudence regarding the execution of intellectually disabled offenders. Atkins v. Virginia paved the way for the juvenile sentencing cases as the Supreme Court for the first time found that, under the Eighth Amendment, a selected class of offenders—the intellectually disabled — were not eligible for the state’s harshest penalty—the death penalty— because of their diminished culpability. Atkins similarly left the state courts to figure out how to decide whether an individual offender met this amorphous standard, “intellectually disabled.” As state courts grappled with this standard and …

Reckless Juveniles, Kimberly Thomas

Articles

Modern doctrine and scholarship largely take it for granted that offenders should be criminally punished for reckless acts.1 Yet, developments in our understanding of human behavior can shed light on how we define and attribute criminal liability, or at least force us to grapple with the categories that have existed for so long. This Article examines recklessness and related doctrines in light of the shifts in understanding of adolescent behavior and its biological roots, to see what insights we might attain, or what challenges these understandings pose to this foundational mens rea doctrine. Over the past decade, the U.S. Supreme …

Champions For Justice & Public Interest Auction 2019, Roger Williams University School Of Law

School of Law Public Interest Auction

No abstract provided.

Prioritizing The Welfare Of Youth: Design Failure In Juvenile Justice And Building The Restorative Alternative, Michael Friedman

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Justice System Is Criminal, Raven Delfina Otero-Symphony

2020 Award Winners

No abstract provided.

A Vision Of Criminal Violence, Punishment And Relational Justice (Reviewing Sam Pillsbury, Imagining A Greater Justice – Criminal Violence, Punishment, And Relational Justice), Mary Graw Leary

Scholarly Articles

Since the inception of a state-run criminal justice system, many have debated and critiqued its features and goals. Often this dialogue takes place largely among academics and theorists with limited impact on policy and an even more marginal influence on the day to day reality of those most affected by the system. In every generation or so, however, a consequential movement emerges, for better or worse. These include movements regarding the evolution of the prison system, the creation of a rehabilitative juvenile court system, the implementation of “tough on crime” provisions of the 1980s, as well as others. With these …

A New Era In Juvenile Sentencing: Why Montgomery, Adolescent Neuroscience, And A Shift In The National Conversation Point Toward A Need For Measure 11 Reform, Joshua Olmsted

Lewis & Clark Law Review

In 1994, Oregon voters passed Ballot Measure 11, a mandatory minimum sentencing scheme that imposes long inflexible sentences for a plethora of serious crimes. In addition to establishing mandatory minimum sentences, Measure 11 dramatically re-shaped the landscape of the juvenile justice system by mandating transfer to adult court for youth between 15 and 17 years old, charged with any Measure 11 offense, even if they are eventually convicted of a lesser offense. In recent years, there has been a push to rethink the way that we evaluate and treat juvenile offenders. Evolving Supreme Court jurisprudence, along with new research into …

Implicit Racial Bias And Students' Fourth Amendment Rights, Jason P. Nance

UF Law Faculty Publications

Tragic acts of school violence such as what occurred in Columbine, Newtown, and, more recently, in Parkland and Santa Fe, provoke intense feelings of anger, fear, sadness, and helplessness. Understandably, in response to these incidents (and for other reasons), many schools have intensified the manner in which they monitor and control students. Some schools rely on combinations of security measures such as metal detectors; surveillance cameras; drug-sniffing dogs; locked and monitored gates; random searches of students’ belongings, lockers, and persons; and law enforcement officers. Not only is there little empirical evidence that these measures actually make schools safer, but overreliance …

Solitary Confinement Of Juvenile Offenders And Pre-Trial Detainees, Nicole Johnson

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Demand Side Of Sex Trafficking In Minnesota: The Who, Where, And Why—And What We Can Do About It, Erinn B. Valine

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Stop In The Name Of Love: Putting An End To The Felony Prosecution Of Adolescent Sexting, Angela Bailey, Laura Heinrich

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.

Convicting Juveniles To Life Without Parole, Bradford Colbert, Alex Baker Kroeger

Mitchell Hamline Law Review

No abstract provided.