Juvenile Law Commons^™

Are Mothers Hazardous To Their Children’S Health?: Law, Culture, And The Framing Of Risk, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines the psychosocial processes of risk construction and explores how these processes intersect with core principles of Anglo-American law. It does so by critiquing current cultural and legal perceptions that mothers, especially pregnant women, pose a risk to their children’s health. The Article’s core argument is that during the last four decades, both American society and American law have increasingly come to view mothers as a primary source of risk to children. This intense focus on the threat of maternal harm ignores significant environmental sources of injury, including fathers and other men, as well as exposure to toxic …

From Third Parties To Parents: The Case Of Lesbian Couples And Their Children, Nancy Polikoff

Scholarly Articles in Law Reviews & Journals

No abstract provided.

Sex, Science, And The Age Of Anxiety, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article examines the question of whether the HPV vaccine should be mandated (for girls and/or boys) in the context of declining rates of childhood immunization, and the potential threat to public health that this decline poses. The article addresses two interconnected legal issues: first, is mandating vaccines to prevent the spread of disease constitutional under substantive due process and equal protection principles, and second, should parents be permitted to “opt out” of mandatory vaccination on their children’s behalf, either for all vaccines or those which prevent particular diseases. The article addresses these issues in the context of America’s growing …

Case Closed: Addressing Unmet Legal Needs & Stabilizing Families, Vivek S. Sankaran, Martha L. Raimon

Other Publications

This is the first of two articles that examines the role that advocates for parents and families can play in furthering the well-being and safety of children. This article highlights how the work of multidisciplinary advocacy teams with legal expertise can help prevent children from entering foster care. The next article will discuss emerging parent representation models that expedite the safe reunification of children already in foster care.

Effects Of Clergy Reporting Laws On Child Maltreatment Report Rates, Frank E. Vandervort, Vincent J. Palusci

Articles

Child maltreatment (CM) reporting laws and policies have an important role in the identification, treatment, and prevention of CM in the United States (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [US DHHS], 2012). Abuse by a member of the clergy “is not only a personal and emotional betrayal, but [also] a spiritual betrayal, with secrecy amplified by the unprecedented and systemic cover-up committed by the Church hierarchy” (Coyne, 2011, p. 15). Recent controversies have resulted in the consideration of changes in mandated U.S. reporting laws that include increasing requirements for clergy and extension to additional professions (Freeh, Sporkin, & Sullivan, …

Using Preventive Legal Advocacy To Keep Children From Entering Foster Care, Vivek Sankaran

Articles

Children may unnecessarily enter foster care because their parents are unable to resolve legal issues that affect their safety and well-being in their home.[...] Yet these kinds of legal needs for poor families are rarely met. On average, poor families experience at least one civil legal need per year, but only a small portion of those needs are satisfied. For about every six thousand people in poverty, there exists only one legal aid lawyer. So legal aid programs are forced to reject close to a million cases each year. This lack of legal services threatens the well-being of children[...] who …

Misplaced Misrepresentations: Why Misrepresentation-Of-Age Statutes Must Be Reinterpreted As They Apply To Children’S Online Contracts, Michelle A. Sargent

Michigan Law Review

The information age revolutionized the relationship between individuals and the internet. Today, children are the targets of online advertisements that lure them into accepting terms of service, thus entering into online agreements. While children may feel comfortable navigating websites, they are psychologically predisposed to be unsophisticated and impulsive actors online. Children lack the digital literacy to understand the implications of accepting website terms of service. Meanwhile, several states have misrepresentation-of-age statutes that prevent children from using the infancy doctrine to disaffirm online contracts because, in accepting the terms of service, children often represent that they are old enough to enter …

Transforming Juvenile Justice: Making Doctrine Out Of Dicta In Graham V. Florida, Jason Zolle

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In the late 1980s and 1990s, many state legislatures radically altered the way that their laws treated children accused of crimes. Responding to what was perceived of as an epidemic of juvenile violence, academics and policymakers began to think of child criminals as a "new breed" of incorrigible "superpredators." States responded by making it easier for prosecutors to try and sentence juveniles as adults, even making it mandatory in some circumstances. Yet in the past decade, the Supreme Court handed down four opinions that limit the states' ability to treat children as adults in the justice system. Roper v. Simmons …

It's Time To Start Showing A Little Restraint: In Search Of A Compromise On Federal Seclusion And Restraint Legislation, Cali Cope-Kasten

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In 2009, the United States House of Representatives heard testimony that hundreds of students had been injured in schools by teachers secluding or physically restraining them. Congress had never legislated on seclusion and restraint, but the alarming allegations of student injuries and deaths prompted many parents to demand a ban on the use of the techniques in schools. In the continuing debate, school officials have protested that seclusion and restraint are important tools for teachers to protect their classrooms from out-of-control students. Torn between these two extreme positions, Congress has twice attempted — but failed — to pass federal legislation …

A Barrier To Child Welfare Reform: The Supreme Court’S Flexible Approach To Federal Rule Of Civil Procedure 60(B)(5) And Granting Relief To States In Institutional Reform Litigation, Rachel Dunnington

Seattle University Law Review

In a recent decision, Horne v. Flores, the Court demanded a broader and more flexible application of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (Rule) 60(b)(5). In doing so, the Court opened the door for states to seek relief from court-enforced agreements like consent decrees. This decision undermines the use of institutional reform litigation as a means of fixing the child welfare system and thus deals a further blow to the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. This Note will discuss Horne’s impact on consent decrees stemming from institutional reform litigation in child welfare. Part II will explore the history of Rule 60 as …

Forgotten Fathers, Daniel L. Hatcher

All Faculty Scholarship

Poor fathers like John are largely forgotten, written off as a subset of the unworthy poor. These fathers struggle with poverty – often with near hopelessness – within multiple systems in which they are either entangled or overlooked, such as child-support and welfare programs, family courts, the criminal justice system, housing programs, and the healthcare, education, and foster-care systems. For these impoverished fathers, the “end of men” is often not simply a question for purposes of discussion but a fact that is all too real. In the instances in which poor fathers are not forgotten, they are targeted as causes …

Special Populations: Mobilization For Change

Touro Law Review

This Article is based on a transcript of a break-out discussion which took place at An Obvious Truth: Creating an Action Blueprint for a Civil Right to Counsel in New York State, held at Touro Law Center, Central Islip, New York, in March 2008. The discussion was moderated by Karen L. Nicolson, Michael Williams, and Toby Golick.

This Article assesses the needs of various special populations and the possible strategies and solutions to create change through enacting a civil right to counsel. The Article is intended to capture information and viewpoints of the people who participated in the break-out discussion …

Conference Bibliography: Juvenile Justice 1999-2013, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas -- William S. Boyd School Of Law

Juvenile Justice Conference

A selected bibliography was prepared in connection with the Juvenile Justice Conference held at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada, Las Vegas, on April 12-13, 2013.

Adoptive Couple V. Baby Girl: Two-And-A-Half Ways To Destroy Indian Law, Marcia A. Yablon-Zug

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

In December 2011, Judge Malphrus of the South Carolina family court ordered Matt and Melanie Capobianco to relinquish custody of Veronica, their two-year-old, adopted daughter, to her biological father, Dusten Brown. A federal statute known as the Indian Child Welfare Act ("ICWA") mandated Veronica's return. However, the court's decision to return Veronica pursuant to this law incited national outrage and strident calls for the Act's repeal. While this outrage was misplaced, it may nonetheless have influenced the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear the appeal. The case of Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl is emotionally complicated, but it is not …

Neither Sad Nor Strange: Recovering The Logic Of Anticruelty Organizations In Gilded Age America, Bryn Resser Pallesen

Michigan Law Review

In 1877, the American Humane Association ("AHA") incorporated as one of the first national organizations dedicated to the protection of animals. Nine years later, it amended its constitution to include the protection of children in its chartered mission. By 1908, there were 354 anticruelty organizations in the United States, 185 of which were, like the AHA, humane societies invested in the welfare of both animals and children (pp. 2-3). As primary source documents reveal, Gilded Age humanitarians viewed the joint pursuit of child and animal protection as entirely sensible (p. 5). One of the Illinois Humane Society's founding directors, for …

The Utilization Of Intermediate Scrutiny In Establishing The Right To Education For Undocumented Alien Children: Plyler V. Doe, Diane I. Osifchok

Pepperdine Law Review

The recent decision in the case of Plyer v. Doe has seemingly solidified the use of the intermediate level of scrutiny as a legitimate standard of review. The Supreme Cour4 in its refusal to apply both the harsh level of strict scrutiny and the often inadequate lower level of a rational basis standard, sought a mid-level analysis. Thus, the intermediate level of review enabled the Court to hold the Texas statute which denied undocumented alien children a free public education constitutionally infirm.

School-Based Legal Services As A Tool In Dismantling The School-To-Prison Pipeline And Achieving Educational Equity, Barbara Fedders, Jason Langberg

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

No abstract provided.

To Testify Or Not To Testify: The Dilemma Facing Children With Multiple Cases Before The Same Judge In Delinquency Court, Katherine I. Puzone

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

From Peer-To-Peer Networks To Cloud Computing: How Technology Is Redefining Child Pornography Laws, Audrey Rogers

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article traces the history of the child pornography laws and sentencing policy in Part I. Part II explains the technologies that have caused some of the current controversies, and then Part III describes how these technologies have blurred the offenses. Finally, Part IV makes suggestions as to how the law could better reflect technology and comport with a refined harm rationale. Courts, legal scholars, and medical experts have explained the harm includes the sexual abuse captured in the images and the psychological injury the victim endures knowing the images are being viewed. This Article further develops the harm rationale …

A Broken Shield: A Plea For Formality In The Juvenile Justice System, Robin Walker Sterling

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

No abstract provided.

Equality Between Adults And Children: Its Meaning, Implications, And Opposition, James G. Dwyer

Faculty Publications

Family law scholars have devoted much attention to equality among groups of adults and some attention to equality between groups of children. There has been little exploration, however, of the notion of equality between adults and children. In this Article, I first explain what it means at a basic, theoretical level to speak of such equality. I then identify some practical implications. Finally, I consider why there is great resistance to many practical implications of children's equality, even among those who would consider themselves advocates for child welfare.

The Child's Right To Be Heard And Represented In Judicial Proceedings , Howard A. Davidson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Los Angeles County Children's Court: A Model Facility For Child Abuse And Neglect Proceedings, Paul Boland

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction, Lee Miller, Don Mark North

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Adult Survivors Of Childhood Sexual Abuse And The Statute Of Limitations: The Need For Consistent Application Of The Delayed Discovery Rule, Gregory G. Gordon

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Disentangling Symmetries: Speech, Association, Parenthood, Laurence H. Tribe

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Put The Town On Notice: School District Liability And Lgbt Bullying Notification Laws, Yariv Pierce

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Congress could mitigate the problem of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) student bullying by requiring that teachers and school officials report all bullying incidents to their school district administrators. Many school districts are not aware of the prevalence of LGBT bullying and the extent to which each school protects, or fails to protect, its LGBT students compared to other harassed students. LGBT students often encounter difficulty demonstrating that their school district has a policy or custom of deliberate indifference toward their equal treatment when a school does not equally protect an LGBT student from peer-to-peer bullying because of the …

Conflicting Images Of Children In First Amendment Jurisprudence, David L. Tubbs

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Purpose Vs. Power: Parens Patriae And Agency Self-Interest, Daniel L. Hatcher

All Faculty Scholarship

The purpose of human service agencies to serve vulnerable populations such as abused and neglected children derives from the common law doctrine of parens patriae, embodying the inherent role of the state as parent of the country. However, along with this foundational purpose, the parens patriae doctrine also provides power that is illusive to public knowledge and oversight. To maintain their cloak of power, the very agencies created to fulfill the parens patriae obligations — to protect the rights of children — have systematically battled the children’s efforts to claim those rights as their own. Also, the agencies have now …

Who's Bringing The Children?: Expanding The Family Exemption For Child Smuggling Offenses, Rebecca M. Abel

Michigan Law Review First Impressions

Under immigration law, an alien smuggling offense takes place when one knowingly encourages, induces, assists, abets, or aids an alien to enter or to try to enter the United States. Committing this offense is cause for either removal or inadmissibility charges under the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"). In addition, a federal criminal conviction for alien smuggling under INA section 274(a)(1)(A) or 274(a)(2) classifies the immigrant as an aggravated felon, leading to near certain deportation. Although the INA levies harsh penalties against smugglers, the practice has not showed any signs of slowing. In 2010, the United States Border Patrol apprehended …