Criminal Law Commons^™

Confession And Mandatory Child Abuse Reporting: A New Take On The Constitutionality Of Abrogating The Priest-Penitent Privilege, Samuel G. Brooks

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Jurors’ Perceptions Of Juvenile Defendants: The Influence Of Intellectual Disability, Abuse History, And Confession Evidence, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Bette L. Bottoms, Maria C. Vargas

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Understanding jurors’ perceptions of juvenile defendants has become increasingly important as more and more juvenile cases are being tried in adult criminal court rather than family or juvenile court. Intellectual disability and child maltreatment are overrepresented among juvenile delinquents, and juveniles (particularly disabled juveniles) are at heightened risk for falsely confessing to crimes. In two mock trial experiments, we examined the effects of disability, abuse history, and confession evidence on jurors’ perceptions of a juvenile defendant across several different crime scenarios. Abused juveniles were treated more leniently than nonabused juveniles only when the juvenile’s crime was motivated by self-defense against …

Delinquent Or Distracted?: Attention Deficit Disorder And The Construction Of The Juvenile Offender, Rashmi Goel

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

William and Billy, 1 two boys, each 13 years old, appear in juvenile court. Neither has any criminal history. Both are doing poorly in school. Both have been cited for truancy in the past. Both are appearing on assault charges arising out of schoolyard fights. If we could peer into their brains, we would find that both have the same brain chemistry, characteristic of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). 2 In the end, the court finds one delinquent, and the other merely distracted. The court finds one in need of confinement, and the other in need of care. Two different …

Death By Incarceration As A Cruel And Unusual Punishment When Applied To Juveniles: Extending Roper To Life Without Parole, Our Other Death Penalty, Robert Johnson, Sonia Tabriz

University of Maryland Law Journal of Race, Religion, Gender and Class

No abstract provided.

The Failure Of Sexting Criminalization: A Plea For The Exercise Of Prosecutorial Restraint, Robert H. Wood

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

The purpose of this Essay is to explore the various legal approaches to the sexting phenomenon through an analysis of a decision by the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, which granted a temporary restraining order enjoining the prosecution of sexting teens on constitutional grounds, and an examination of current and pending legislative attempts to deal with the sexting phenomenon. Section I describes the facts leading up to the district court decision and its subsequent holding. Section II examines the approaches to sexting prosecution and legislation taken by other states. Section III analyzes the legal issues …

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 …

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 …

Midwestern Juvenile Drug Courts: Analysis & Recommendations, Nicole A. Kozdron

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Public Perceptions Of Registry Laws For Juvenile Sex Offenders, Carrie E. Reynolds, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Jessica M. Salerno, Margaret C. Stevenson, Tish R.A. Wiley, Bette L. Bottoms

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

Understanding jurors’ perceptions of juvenile defendants has become increasingly important as more and more juvenile cases are being tried in adult criminal court rather than family or juvenile court. Intellectual disability and child maltreatment are overrepresented among juvenile delinquents, and juveniles (particularly disabled juveniles) are at heightened risk for falsely confessing to crimes. In two mock trial experiments, we examined the effects of disability, abuse history, and confession evidence on jurors’ perceptions of a juvenile defendant across several different crime scenarios. Abused juveniles were treated more leniently than nonabused juveniles only when the juvenile’s crime was motivated by self-defense against …

Conceptualizations Of Legalese In The Course Of Due Process, From Arrest To Plea Bargain: The Perspectives Of Disadvantaged Offenders, Shiv Narayan Persaud

Journal Publications

"Equal protection" and "due process of law" are constitutional guarantees tenaciously embraced by all Americans.' While numerous studies focused on how these guarantees play out in the lives of offenders, few sought to examine these guarantees from the standpoint of offenders, particularly those from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. Guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Equal Protection Clause makes clear, in part, that, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due …

Introduction: Challenging The School-To-Prison Pipeline, Deborah N. Archer

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

What’S Wrong With Victims’ Rights In Juvenile Court?: Retributive V. Rehabilitative Systems Of Justice, Kristin N. Henning

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

While scholars have written extensively about the victims’ rights movement in capital and criminal cases, there has been very little discussion about the intersection of victims’ rights and the juvenile justice system. Statutes that allow victims to attend juvenile hearings and present oral and written impact statements have shifted the juvenile court’s priorities and altered the way judges think about young offenders. While judges were once primarily concerned with the best interests of the delinquent child, victims’ rights legislation now requires juvenile courts to balance the rehabilitative needs of the child with other competing interests such as accountability to the …

Equal Sentences For Unequal Participation: Should The Eighth Amendment Allow All Juvenile Murder Accomplices To Receive Life Without Parole?, Brian Gallini

School of Law Faculty Publications and Presentations

No court has addressed the constitutional significance of sentencing juvenile murder accomplices who play a minimal role in the underlying killing to life in prison without parole. Indeed, no precedent makes clear whether it is cruel and unusual to impose that sentence on juvenile offenders convicted of first-degree murder pursuant to either the felony-murder doctrine or an accomplice theory of liability, notwithstanding their minimal involvement in the victim’s death. To investigate this unanswered question, Part I of this Article explores the imposition of life without parole sentences on juvenile non-killers convicted of murder via either the felony-murder doctrine or accomplice …

Child Pornography's Forgotten Victims, Audrey Rogers

Pace Law Review

No abstract provided.

"It's Not World Peace, But ..." Restorative Justice: Analysis Of Recidivism Rates In Campbell Law School's Juvenile Justice Project, Jennifer L. Kerrigan

Campbell Law Review

This Comment explores victim-offender mediation and specifically the recidivism rates of the juveniles who participated in Campbell's Juvenile Justice Project (JJP). Part II gives a brief background on the different theories of justice and the move towards restorative justice. Part III explains how the JJP came to be and how it currently functions. Part IV outlines the methods used to determine the recidivism rates of the program. Part V displays the results of the study and illustrates the differences with charts. Part VI discusses the possible explanations for the differences in the recidivism rates. Part VII concludes with closing remarks …

What To Do With Omar Khadr? Putting A Child Soldier On Trial: Questions Of International Law, Juvenile Justice, And Moral Culpability, 41 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1281 (2008), Christopher L. Dore

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Prosecuting Children In Times Of Conflict: The West African Experience, David M. Crane

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

In Re Gault And The Promise Of Systemic Reform, Kate Kruse

Faculty Scholarship

The right to counsel for juveniles in delinquency cases that the Supreme Court declared in In re Gault can be seen as an effort at systemic reform - a purposeful alteration of the structure, procedure, or resources of a law-administering system that aims to better align the system's operation with the principles or ideals on which it is based. Although the Court articulated the benefits of counsel in terms of individual representation, juvenile defenders are increasingly called upon to expand their role to include broader forms of advocacy aimed at reforming juvenile justice system practice and procedure. The predominant stakeholder …

Juvenile Crime And Criminal Justice: Resolving Border Disputes, Jeffrey Fagan

Faculty Scholarship

Rising juvenile crime rates during the 1970s and 1980s spurred state legislatures across the country to exclude or transfer a significant share of offenders under the age of eighteen to the jurisdiction of the criminal court, essentially redrawing the boundary between the juvenile and adult justice systems. Jeffrey Fagan examines the legal architecture of the new boundary-drawing regime and how effective it has been in reducing crime.

The juvenile court, Fagan emphasizes, has always had the power to transfer juveniles to the criminal court. Transfer decisions were made individually by judges who weighed the compet­ing interests of public safety and …

Condemning Our Youth To Lives As Criminals:Incarcerating Children As Adults, Chelsea Dunn

Richmond Public Interest Law Review

Underlying the juvenile court system are two competing philosophies of justice which have taken predominance over the system at different historical periods in relation to the public climate. Early reformers conceptualized juvenile justice as an informal and protective system that would seek to rehabilitate disadvantaged children who had succumbed to criminal influences. In response to negative assessments noting the leniency of juvenile courts, critics began to advocate for a more punitive system which would focus on retribution rather than treatment. Measures adopted by courts to increase the criminal responsibility placed upon juveniles include minimum sentencing guidelines and transfer of offenders …

Rehabilitating Juvenile Sex Offenders With A Life Sentence, 42 J. Marshall L. Rev. 187 (2008), Adam Doeringer

UIC 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 …

A Tangled Web Of Justice: American Indian And Alaska Native Youth In Federal, State, And Tribal Justice Systems, Addie C. Rolnick, Neelum Arya

Scholarly Works

This policy brief is intended to serve as a resource for tribes, juvenile justice professionals, and other stakeholders interested in improving outcomes for Native youth by presenting the current state of knowledge on Native youth and their involvement in justice systems across the country.

In Re Gault And The Promise Of Systemic Reform, Katherine R. Kruse

Scholarly Works

The right to counsel for juveniles in delinquency cases that the Supreme Court declared in In re Gault can be seen as an effort at systemic reform - a purposeful alteration of the structure, procedure, or resources of a law-administering system that aims to better align the system's operation with the principles or ideals on which it is based. Although the Court articulated the benefits of counsel in terms of individual representation, juvenile defenders are increasingly called upon to expand their role to include broader forms of advocacy aimed at reforming juvenile justice system practice and procedure. The predominant stakeholder …

Condemning Our Youth To Lives As Criminals:Incarcerating Children As Adults, Chelsea Dunn

Richmond Journal of Law and the Public Interest

Underlying the juvenile court system are two competing philosophies of justice which have taken predominance over the system at different historical periods in relation to the public climate. Early reformers conceptualized juvenile justice as an informal and protective system that would seek to rehabilitate disadvantaged children who had succumbed to criminal influences. In response to negative assessments noting the leniency of juvenile courts, critics began to advocate for a more punitive system which would focus on retribution rather than treatment. Measures adopted by courts to increase the criminal responsibility placed upon juveniles include minimum sentencing guidelines and transfer of offenders …

In Whose "Best Interests"? – An International And Comparative Assessment Of Us Rules On Sentencing Of Juveniles, Jelani Jefferson Exum, John W. Head

Faculty Publications

According to numerous sources, both at the international level and within the USA, legal standards governing the treatment of children (commonly defined as persons under 18 years old)—including their treatment at the hands of the judicial system—should reflect an assessment of "the best interests of the child". An explicit announcement of this principle at the international level appears in the Convention on the Rights of the Child ("CRC"), which nearly all countries in the world have adopted. Article 37 of the CRC elaborates on the "best interests" principle, by prescribing six key standards national juvenile justice systems are to follow …

Introduction: The Challenge Of Lionel Tate, Elizabeth S. Scott, Laurence Steinberg

Faculty Scholarship

Legal reforms over the past generation have transformed juvenile crime regulation from a system that viewed most youth crime as the product of immaturity into one that is ready to hold many youths to the standard of accountability imposed on adults. Supporters of these reforms argue that they are simply a response to the inability of the traditional juvenile court to deal adequately with violent youth crime, but the legal changes that have transformed the system have often been undertaken in an atmosphere of moral panic, with little deliberation about consequences and costs.

In this book we argue that a …

The Impact Of Traumatic Stress And Alcohol Exposure On Youth: Implications For Lawyers, Judges, And Courts, Frank E. Vandervort

Articles

Since its inception in the late nineteenth century, the juvenile court has been concerned with the legal problems of children and their families. From the court’s earliest days, it has sought to address child abuse and neglect and juvenile delinquency as social problems that result from familial and community breakdown. Over the decades, researchers from various disciplines have provided varying explanations of how and why family systems break down, why some parents fail to nurture their children, why some physically or sexually abuse their children, and why some children become delinquent.

Adolescent Development And The Regulation Of Youth Crime, Elizabeth S. Scott, Laurence Steinberg

Faculty Scholarship

Elizabeth Scott and Laurence Steinberg explore the dramatic changes in the law’s conception of young offenders between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. At the dawn of the juvenile court era, they note, most youths were tried and punished as if they were adults. Early juvenile court reformers argued strongly against such a view, believing that the justice system should offer young offenders treatment that would cure them of their antisocial ways. That rehabilitative model of juvenile justice held sway until a sharp upswing in youth violence at the end of the twentieth century …

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.