Juvenile Law Commons^™

Self-Determination Through Children's Rights: Resisting The Paradoxical Pretext Of Parents' Rights Legislation, Jeremiah Chin

Washington Law Review

Washington state law balances the interests of parents and the state in education, healthcare, and the general wellbeing of children. Despite the fact that children are at the center of emerging controversies, children’s rights are rarely discussed in state legislation debating the obligations and relationships between the state of Washington and parents. In education, for example, RCW 28A.605.005 finds “[p]arents are the primary stakeholders in their children’s upbringing.” While this may be true relative to the state, it overlooks the fact that children are the primary actors, agents, and rights bearers in their own personhood. This Article therefore considers ongoing …

Making Youth Matter, Kimberly Ambrose

Washington Law Review

Gun violence is the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the United States. The harm caused by this public health crisis falls disproportionately on Black and Brown youth. While it is broadly accepted that children are less blameworthy than adults for their criminal behavior, what does this mean when they have access to and use guns? The Supreme Court held that youth matters when juveniles face life without parole sentences because children are different from adults—they fail to appreciate risks and consequences; are more impulsive; more susceptible to peer and family influence; less able to remove themselves …

Brief Of Amici Curiae Scholars For The Advancement Of Children's Constitutional Rights And Students Engaged In Advancing Texas In Support Of Respondents, Mahmoud V. Taylor, U.S. Supreme Court (No. 24-297), Tanya Washington, Jeremiah Chin, Sarah Medina Camiscoli, Travis F. Chance, Amalia Y. Sax-Bolder, Catherine E. Smith

Court Briefs

Amici are members of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas and United States legal scholars of children and the law, education law, family law, and anti-discrimination law.

Students Engaged in Advancing Texas is a nonprofit organization founded by young people to develop civic leadership and belonging and represents students of various faiths and identities who have an interest in the outcome of this case.

Amici draw this Court’s attention to the constitutional harms that public school students and LGBTQ+ students and students with LGBTQ+ parents would bear should the Court grant Petitioners’ injunctive relief.

Growing Pains: The Evolution Of Jlwop Sentences In Washington, Selena M. Galvan

Washington Law Review

In 2021, the Washington State Supreme Court abolished de facto life sentences— those that amount to a life sentence despite not carrying the life without parole label—for juvenile offenders, finding them unconstitutional under article 1, section 14 of the Washington Constitution. In 2022, less than a year later, the Court reversed course in the case of State v. Anderson by upholding a sixty-one-year sentence for crimes a juvenile offender committed at age seventeen. The Washington State Supreme Court’s decision in Anderson runs contrary to what modern science demonstrates about the diminished culpability of juvenile offenders, and it runs contrary to …

The Next Generation, Jeremiah Chin

Articles

What would the law look like if we let children remake it? Laws govern, classify, and circumscribe children who inherit the law and its consequences. Discourses of power invoke children as rhetorical strategies to gain political favor or obviate a position—yet children are uncritically excluded from participating in the systems that control them. Children are subjected to the laws and objects of legislation, but denied the rights, autonomy, or authority to participate in the making of law and policy. Even the conceptualization of the constitutional rights of children is treated as an assumption, ill-defined and under theorized by traditional legal …

Coming Of Age In The Eyes Of The Law: Theconflict Between Miranda, J.D.B., And Puberty, David M. N. Garavito

Articles

Everyone knows that going through puberty is associated with a multitude of changes: physical, mental, hormonal, etc. Fewer people know that when and how fast one goes through puberty can also be associated with changes to one’s legal rights. The Supreme Court of the United States held, in the landmark case of J.D.B. v. North Carolina, that there were many “commonsense conclusions” that could be drawn from how a child’s age would affect their interactions with law enforcement. In that case, the Court was deciding whether age should affect whether a child was considered “in custody” of the police, granting …

Commercial Sex And Exploitation, Judge Barbara Mack, Dana Raigrodski

Chapters in Books

Commercial sexual exploitation (CSE), including sex trafficking, mainly targets women, children, young adults (up to age 24), and individuals identifying as LGBTQ+, primarily in communities in poverty, Indigenous communities, and communities of color. Economic and social marginalization drives people into the commercial sex industry and exploitation, which in turn perpetuates that economic and social marginalization. The most targeted and marginalized populations have been doubly harmed by exploitation and by poor treatment within the legal system.

While data is limited, CSE is widespread in the sex industry in Washington State and nationally. State and national data show significant disparities based on …

Beyond “Children Are Different”: The Revolution In Juvenile Intake And Sentencing, Josh Gupta-Kagan

Washington Law Review

For more than 120 years, juvenile justice law has not substantively defined the core questions in most delinquency cases—when should the state prosecute children rather than divert them from the court system (the intake decision), and what should the state do with children once they are convicted (the sentencing decision)? Instead, the law has granted certain legal actors wide discretion over these decisions, namely prosecutors at intake and judges at sentencing. This Article identifies and analyzes an essential reform trend changing that reality: legislation, enacted in at least eight states in the 2010s, to limit when children can be prosecuted …

Judicial Discretion Is Advised: The Lack Of Discretionary Appointments Of Counsel For Children In Washington State Dependency Proceedings, Marisa Forthun

Washington Law Review Online

State agencies initiate dependency proceedings when a child is alleged, often due to parental neglect or abuse, to be a dependent of the state. The state must intervene “[w]hen parents do not comply with [Child Protective Services] requirements, or when the state believes the child is at too great a risk to remain at home even if parents were to comply with services.” Dependency proceedings usually take place in juvenile courts and involve the local state agency, the parents, and the child. After the government files a petition alleging circumstances of neglect or abuse, “[t]he court issues temporary orders regarding …

2021: How Gender And Race Affect Justice Now - Final Report, Justice Sheryl Gordon Mccloud, Dana Raigrodski, Sierra Rotakhina, Kelley Amburgey-Richardson

Books

In 1989, the Washington Supreme Court’s Task Force on Gender and Justice in the Courts produced a groundbreaking report on the impact of gender on selected areas of the law. It concluded that gender did affect the availability of justice. We – the Washington State Supreme Court Gender and Justice Commission – are a product of that report and its recommendations. Now, in 2021, we have completed our follow-up study.

Our legal and social science research, our data collection, and our independent pilot projects all led us to the same frustrating conclusion about the effect of gender in Washington State …

Providing A Meaningful Opportunity For Release: A Proposal For Improving Washington's Miller-Fix, Maya L. Ramakrishnan

Washington Law Review

Miller v. Alabama1 set forth new constitutional requirements that necessitated changes in Washington State’s sentencing law for children. In response, the Washington legislature passed RCW 9.94A.730: a parole statute that presumptively releases children who committed crimes after they have served twenty years. Unless the parole board finds they are more likely than not to commit a future crime if released, the Miller-fix statute requires that eligible petitioners are released. The parole board has wide discretion in determining whether someone is more likely than not to commit a future crime because the statute provides no guidance about how to make this …

The Trauma Of Trump's Family Separation And Child Detention Actions: A Children's Rights Perspective, Jonathan Todres, Daniela Villamizar Fink

Washington Law Review

In April 2018, the Trump Administration publicly announced a new zero-tolerance policy for illegal entries at the U.S. border. This action kicked off a wave of family separations that made headlines and drew criticism from around the globe. Despite resounding condemnation of these actions, the Trump Administration defended its family separation policy as a “tough deterrent.” At least 2,600 families were torn apart in the ensuing months. And subsequent reports—from both the government and others—have detailed widespread abuses of and substandard conditions for children held in detention centers. The consequences of these separations and the maltreatment of children in detention …

Miller'S Promise: Re-Evaluating Extreme Criminal Sentences For Children, Nick Straley

Washington Law Review

Scientific, legal, and societal notions about youth have come together to reaffirm an age-old concept—children are different and they change as they grow older. In recent decisions, the United States Supreme Court has required courts and legislatures to take a new look at extreme criminal sentences imposed upon children. Life without parole sentences and decades-long, determinate sentences are constitutionally suspect when applied to children because they fail to adequately account for the dynamism of youth. Miller v. Alabama and Graham v. Florida announced two important principles: (1) that an extreme sentence can only be imposed upon a child following an …

Graham On The Ground, Cara H. Drinan

Washington Law Review

In Graham v. Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional to sentence a non-homicide juvenile offender to life in prison without parole. While states need not guarantee release to these juvenile offenders, they cannot foreclose such an outcome at the sentencing phase. Scholars have identified several long-term ramifications of Graham, including its likely influence on juvenile sentencing practices and on retributive justice theory. As yet unexamined, though, are the important and thorny legal questions that Graham raises for state judges and lawmakers in the very short term. To whom does the Graham decision apply? What …

Sex And The Workplace: "Consenting" Adolescents And A Conflict Of Laws, Jennifer Ann Drobac

Washington Law Review

According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, sexual harassment of adolescents at work may constitute a serious, but to date largely undocumented, problem. Courts respond inconsistently to adolescent "consent" in sexual harassment employment cases. This Article reviews state criminal statutory rape law, federal civil law, and tort law to reveal the conflicting legal treatment of adolescent capacity to consent to sex. It highlights conflicts not only between the criminal and civil systems, but also between sister states' laws and laws within states. For example, this Article finds that despite criminal sexual abuse laws, courts permitted employers to use adolescent "consent" …

A Proposal To Bring The Becca Bill's Runaway-Detention Provisions Into Compliance With Juveniles' Procedural Due Process Rights, Carrie A. Tracy

Washington Law Review

The Becca Bill, enacted in Washington State in 1995, changed the way Washington treats runaway juveniles. The Bill creates a series of secure crisis residential centers and authorizes law enforcement officers to take juvenile runaways into custody and place them in these secure facilities. The facilities must keep the admitted juveniles for at least twenty-four hours but no more than five days. This Comment argues that the Becca Bill, which provides no judicial review of the commitment to detention, violates the procedural due process requirements of Washington and U.S. constitutions. While courts have extended procedural due process protection to juveniles' …

The Proposed Revisions To Japan's Juvenile Law: If Punishment Is Their Answer, They Are Asking The Wrong Question, Jessica Hardung

Washington International Law Journal

The Juvenile Law in Japan turned fifty years old on January 1, 1999. Japan enjoys one of the lowest overall crime rates of any industrialized nation, but its juvenile crime rate is on the rise. The rise in juvenile crime has prompted Japanese legislators to propose changes to the Juvenile Law. This Comment argues that the majority of the proposed revisions, which do not focus on rehabilitation, should not be adopted and that social controls already in place are sufficient to combat any increase in juvenile delinquency. Japanese culture has unique characteristics that contribute to its low crime rate. In …

Communities Take Control Of Crime: Incorporating The Conference Model Into The United States Juvenile Justice System, Amanda L. Paye

Washington International Law Journal

Juvenile crime is one of the preeminent concerns of many Western societies today, yet the current retributive styles of justice that purport to "get tough" on youth crime have not been effective. In defiance of the "get tough" rhetoric, and despite the lack of meaningful legislative recognition, communities are adjudicating juvenile cases through alternative programs based on the Restorative Justice theory. Because of the promising effects of Restorative Justice on youth crime, New Zealand and Australia have taken the bold step of restructuring their juvenile justice systems via landmark legislation that incorporates an innovative "conferencing" model. The model is a …

Domestic Child Abuse Under The U.N. Convention On The Rights Of The Child: Implications For Children's Rights In Four Asian Countries, Paula C. Littlewood

Washington International Law Journal

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first binding treaty to endorse children's rights as separate from both adults and the family, and is thus an important step in international law toward recognition of children as rights bearers. An inquiry into the extent to which children enjoy human rights logically begins with Article 19 of the Convention which guarantees a child's right to freedom from abuse and neglect by any party. While most literature in this area concentrates either on the rights guaranteed by the Convention or issues raised by studying child abuse across cultures, …

"Sexual Motivation" After State V. Halstien: Still Hazy For His Teenage Peers, Robert E. Lipscomb

Washington Law Review

In State v. Halstien, the Washington Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a juvenile statute that provides for a charge of sexual motivation in offenses other than sex offenses. Such motivation, if proven, becomes an aggravating factor that a judge may consider (along with any mitigating factors) in sentencing. In rejecting the argument that the statute was void for vagueness, the court should have clarified the statute by requiring a finding that the defendant manifested a sexual disorder, as well as a finding that sexual motivation was a substantial factor in the offense.

A Juvenile's Right Against Compelled Self-Incrimination At Predisposition Proceedings, Renée M. Willette

Washington Law Review

State courts have struggled to balance the tensions between the juvenile justice system and a juvenile's constitutional rights at post-adjudicatory predisposition proceedings. Washington courts do not provide a clear standard for protecting a juvenile's rights at these proceedings. This Comment examines the punitive nature of Washington's juvenile justice system and argues that the right against self-incrimination should attach at juvenile predisposition proceedings. It also argues that a grant of use and derivative use immunity at such proceedings provides optimal protection for juvenile rights because it safeguards a juvenile's rights while fostering the treatment component of the Juvenile Justice Act.

Legal Barriers In Child Abuse Investigations: State Powers And Individual Rights, Mark Hardin

Washington Law Review

This article addresses the legal dimensions of an important and difficult problem sometimes faced by social workers employed with child protection agencies: noncooperation with investigations. This problem can arise when the child's family denies access to the home or the child, or when others, such as schools and health providers, decline to cooperate with the investigation. This article identifies the constitutionally based procedural requirements that are applicable to child abuse investigations. It then proposes specific legislative reforms consistent with these constitutional requirements. The discussion of procedural requirements for child protection proceedings necessarily considers whether existing criminal and administrative procedures apply …

Legal Barriers In Child Abuse Investigations: State Powers And Individual Rights, Mark Hardin

Washington Law Review

This article addresses the legal dimensions of an important and difficult problem sometimes faced by social workers employed with child protection agencies: noncooperation with investigations. This problem can arise when the child's family denies access to the home or the child, or when others, such as schools and health providers, decline to cooperate with the investigation. This article identifies the constitutionally based procedural requirements that are applicable to child abuse investigations. It then proposes specific legislative reforms consistent with these constitutional requirements. The discussion of procedural requirements for child protection proceedings necessarily considers whether existing criminal and administrative procedures apply …

Juvenile Court: The Legal Process As A Rehabilitative Tool, Bobbe Jean Ellis

Washington Law Review

The author's study, reported in this comment, had two objectives. First, it attempted to determine whether a juvenile's experience with the traditional sociological model or with the legal due process model is more likely to motivate him to feel positively toward the legal system. Second, this study attempted to measure the attitudes of the professionals in the juvenile system (judges, attorneys, and caseworkers) toward the two models. The results of the study, although not all were statistically significant, indicated that although the professionals favored the traditional sociological model, the use of the legal-due process model was more likely to result …

Citizenship For Eighteen Year Olds—Age Of Majority In Washington—Ch. 292, Washington Laws Of 1971, Anon

Washington Law Review

The 1971 Washington Legislature helped bridge the generation gap by lowering the age of majority to eighteen years for almost all purposes. The statute manifests a confidence in the maturity of persons between eighteeen and twenty-one years of age and recognizes their readiness to accept the responsibilities of citizenship. Although Congress brought this issue to the center of national awareness with the passage of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970, the task of extending to eighteeen year olds the full measure of legal rights remains with the states. The purpose of this note is to summarize by topic the …

Criminal Procedure—Juveniles: Retroactive Application Of In Re Gault Denied In Washington—Brumley V. Charles Denny Juvenile Center, 77 Wn.2d 702, 466 P.2d 481 (1970), Anon

Washington Law Review

Genevieve Fay Brumley was adjudged a delinquent child by the juvenile court of Snohomish County on December 12, 1966 after she admitted telephoning bomb threats to local schools. Present at the adjudicatory hearing were court personnel, her parents, a welfare caseworker, a probation officer, and a policeman. She was not represented by counsel. During her subsequent incarceration, the United States Supreme Court extended the right to counsel to juvenile proceedings in In re Gault. In August of 1968, Miss Brumley petitioned the superior court for a writ of habeas corpus, contending that the Gault decision required a reversal of her …

The Juvenile At Waiver: Is Counsel Required?, Anon

Washington Law Review

The petitioner was before juvenile court on charges of committing a battery. Defendant and his mother were advised of their right to counsel, but not to appointed counsel at certification, a proceeding which determines whether the juvenile court should waive jurisdiction in favor of district court. Neither defendant nor his family was financially able to employ counsel. Counsel was appointed only after the defendant had been transferred to the district court for criminal prosecution. On motion to vacate judgment and sentence on the subsequent criminal conviction, Held: An indigent juvenile offender has no right to appointed counsel in a transfer …

The Juvenile At Waiver: Is Counsel Required?, Anon

Washington Law Review

The petitioner was before juvenile court on charges of committing a battery. Defendant and his mother were advised of their right to counsel, but not to appointed counsel at certification, a proceeding which determines whether the juvenile court should waive jurisdiction in favor of district court. Neither defendant nor his family was financially able to employ counsel. Counsel was appointed only after the defendant had been transferred to the district court for criminal prosecution. On motion to vacate judgment and sentence on the subsequent criminal conviction, Held: An indigent juvenile offender has no right to appointed counsel in a transfer …

The Juvenile Offender And Self-Incrimination, Rodger W. Pegues

Washington Law Review

A juvenile offender whose case has been transferred from juvenile court to criminal court may be confronted with incriminating statements which he made during the course of the juvenile proceedings. The admissibility in a criminal prosecution of confessions and admissions made by a juvenile to police, probation officers, juvenile court judges, or other juvenile authorities involves important issues of public policy and constitutional law. The problem typically arises when a youth of sixteen or seventeen commits an act which, were he an adult, would be characterized as a crime. The youth has a history of several juvenile offenses. He is …

The Juvenile Court Law Of Washington: Its History And Basic Considerations For Its Revision, Van R. Hinkle

Washington Law Review

Although the Juvenile Court is considered a 20th-century development, the middle of the 19th century saw the establishment in several eastern states of private hearings in cases involving children and the creation of special reform schools for juveniles. This action marked the first formalized recognition of the need for specialized procedures whereby the Anglo-Saxon judicial tradition of affording special protection to children might be continued.