Juvenile Law Commons^™

2005-2006 Survey Of Florida Juvenile Law, Michael J. Dale

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Transracial Adoption Of Black Children: An Economic Analysis, Mary Eschelbach Hansen, Daniel Pollack

ExpressO

The anti-discrimination law governing placement of children in foster care and adoption was intended to speed the adoption of Black children who could not be reunited with their families of origin. Only recently have two states been fined for violating this decade-old law. Based on our analysis of administrative data collected by the Children’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, we conclude that more vigorous enforcement of the anti-discrimination law in adoption could result in significant gains to Black children. We find that Black children spend more time as legal orphans than children of other races …

A Law Guardian By The Same Name: A Response To Professor Guggenheim's Matrimonial Commission Critique, Merril Sobie

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

I commence this article with a discussion of the statutory provisions governing the appointment and responsibilities of attorneys who represent children in New York. Part II briefly outlines the chronological implementation from initial enactment through the Matrimonial Commission Report, a period spanning forty-five years. Parts III and IV explore the specific nature of child custody representation and the relationship between the attorney and the child client during the course of a frequently lengthy proceeding. Last, the Commission's conclusions and recommendations are critiqued in Parts V and VI.

Putative Fathers Take Note: Revisiting In Re Loveheart And Revising The Rule Of Notice In Dependency Proceedings In Light Of Missouri's Revised Statutes And Putative Father Registry, Lauren A. Standlee

ExpressO

An increasingly large number of babies are born to unwed parents in the United States every year. This phenomenon is problematical for putative fathers in adoption proceedings because it is difficult to protect such a father’s rights while advancing the child’s best interests. Many states, such as Missouri, have responded by enacting putative father registries. An unwed father may file his intent to claim paternity with the Missouri Putative Father Registry in a postcard to insure notice of any proceeding that may affect his parental rights. However, a Missouri putative father who has not filed with the registry and taken …

Child Statements In A Post-Crawford World: What The United States Supreme Court Failed To Consider With Regard To Child Victims And Witnesses, Allie Phillips

ExpressO

With the issuance of Crawford v. Washington, 514 U.S. 36 (2004), by the United States Supreme Court on March 8, 2004, wide spread confusion and concern swept through the nation’s prosecutorial community. The new rule announced in Crawford created too many questions and provided few answers by the Court. In particular, anxiety arose from the child protection community in regard to one primary issue: Are forensic interviews of child victims and witnesses, and other statements made by children, considered “testimonial statements” according to Crawford, thus requiring the child to take the witness stand? The Court further confused the new rule …

Tradeoffs In Formulating A Consistent National Policy On Adoption, Mary Eschelbach Hansen, Daniel Pollack

ExpressO

Just as the courts must consider the tradeoff between the best interest of the child and parental rights in involuntary termination of parental rights, policy on international adoption must consider the tradeoffs between the best interest of the child and the long-term interests of the nation. We argue that countries that suspend international adoptions do not maximize social welfare. A consistent national policy to maximize the well-being of the children and society at large would be to devote resources today to the oversight of international adoption in accord with child protections under the Hague Convention, while at the same time …

A Complete Property Right Amendment, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

The trend of the eminent domain reform and "Kelo plus" initiatives is toward a comprehensive Constitutional property right incorporating the elements of level of review, nature of government action, and extent of compensation. This article contains a draft amendment which reflects these concerns.

The Abortion Rights Of Adolescents Should Be Coextensive With Those Of Adults--A Theoretical Framework, Chad M. Gerson

ExpressO

The aim of this article is to argue that the abortion rights of adolescents should be coextensive with those of adults. The first section of the article reviews research in child development which has demonstrated that adolescents are able to make informed, mature decisions on procreative issues. The second section reviews cases which have defined the contours of adult women’s abortion rights, and argues that the reasoning behind those holdings also applies to adolescents.

Parental Consent And Notification Laws In The Abortion Context: Rejecting The "Maturity" Standard In Judicial Bypass Proceedings, Anna Bonny

ExpressO

The choice to become a parent, to give a baby up for adoption, or to terminate a pregnancy presents a life-altering decision for a minor. The majority of states require minors to engage their parents or legal guardians in their choice to obtain an abortion, but not in decisions to give their babies up for adoption or to become parents. Though the Supreme Court has held that parental consent and notification laws do not infringe on a minor's constitutional rights if judicial bypass options are available, the reality of these judicial proceedings demonstrates a biased and unworkable legal avenue. Even …

Malibu Locals Only: "Boys Will Be Boys", Or Dangerous Street Gang? Why The Criminal Justice System's Failure To Properly Identify Suburban Gangs Hurts Efforts At Fighting Gangs, Brian William Ludeke

ExpressO

In the last several years, a group of youths calling themselves Malibu Locals Only or MLO has performed several violent crimes, intimidating many people in the area around Malibu, CA. Despite the gang-like appearance of these youths and their crimes, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department officials insist that MLO is not a gang. This article examines MLO, its history, and its current state in the context of California anti-gang legislation.

The article theorizes that the criminal justice system's failure to call a group like MLO a gang while waging war on other groups, primarily in lower income, heavily minority areas, …

Adult's Sexual Orientation And State Determinations Regarding Placement Of Children, Michael S. Wald

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Bond Repudiation, Tax Codes, The Appropriations Process And Restitution Post-Eminent Domain Reform, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

This brief comment suggests where the anti-eminent domain movement might be heading next.

Lawrence V. Texas Overrules San Antonio School District. V. Rodriguez, John H. Ryskamp

ExpressO

San Antonio School District v. Rodriguez used the scrutiny regime to decide whether there was an Equal Protection right to housing. However, Lawrence v. Texas abolished the scrutiny regime. So how do we evaluate whether there is an education right under Equal Protection? The right to education in the Texas Constitution shows us that we use the liberty Equal Protection right to determine if state laws are essential to education; this is the meaning of Lawrence's rule that laws are not permitted respecting liberty which do not "substantially further a legitimate state interest." Note that this takes substantially from intermediate …

Traditional Values, Or A New Tradition Of Prejudice? The Boy Scouts Of America Vs. The Unitarian Universalist Association Of Congregations, Eric Alan Isaacson

ExpressO

President William Howard Taft, a Unitarian leader whose liberal faith had been viciously attacked by religious conservatives in the 1908 presidential campaign, used the White House as a platform in 1911 to launch a new nonsectarian organization for youth: The Boy Scouts of America (“BSA”). Lately, however, the BSA itself has come under the control of religious conservatives – who in 1992 banned Taft’s denomination from the BSA’s Religious Relationships Committee, and in 1998 threw Taft’s denomination out of its Religious Emblems Program. The denomination’s offense: A tradition of teaching its children that institutionalized discrimination is wrong. Unitarian Universalist religious …

Who Should Hold The Key? An Analysis Of Access And Confidentiality In Juvenile Dependency Courts, Jennifer L. Flint

ExpressO

A small child enters a courtroom to face the people that have subjected her to sexual and physical abuse. As she takes a seat she steals a glance at her abusers. She cannot help but look, for her abusers are her parents. She turns her head to hide her tears, and also, the stove coil-shaped burn marks that have been branded upon her face. Should the public and the media be permitted to enter the courtroom to capture this heart-wrenching scene? Or should the proceeding be cloaked in confidentiality? The answer depends on the state in which the proceeding is …

Title Ix Versus Candian Human Rights Legislation: How The United States Should Learn From Canada's Human Rights Act In The Context Of Sexual Harassment In Schools, Brianne I. Weiss

ExpressO

This Article critically examines the success of Title IX in eradicating sexual harassment in educational settings after the Supreme Court decisions in Gebser v. Lago and Monroe v. Davis. Regrettably, the high bar for recovery established by these cases, in addition to poor administrative enforcement of Title IX have eroded its ability to maintain discrimination-free schools. After an examination of the manner in which the Canadian human rights model operates in the context of sexual harassment in educational settings, recommendations are made that the United States should use the Canadian example to improve its own system. Specifically, the United States …

Adult Punishment For Juvenile Offenders: Does It Reduce Crime?, Richard E. Redding

Working Paper Series

This chapter discusses the research on the general and specific deterrent effects of transferring juveniles for trial in adult criminal court, identifies gaps in our knowledge base that require further research, discusses the circumstances under which effective deterrence may be achieved, and examines whether there are effective alternatives for achieving deterrence other than adult sanctions for serious juvenile offenders. As a backdrop to this analysis, the chapter first examines the role of public opinion in shaping the get tough policies, and how policy makers have misunderstood and perceived support for these policies.

In The Best Interest Of The Child, Ellen L. Buckwalter

ExpressO

Each year more than 200,000 children in the United States are abducted by family members. When a child is abducted across international borders, the difficulties are compounded. Since the late 1970s, The Department of State’s Office of Children’s Issues has been contacted in approximately 16,000 cases involving children who were either abducted from the United States or prevented from returning to the U.S. by one of their parents.

The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (“the Convention”) adopted on October 24, 1980, reflects a worldwide concern about the harmful effects that parental kidnapping has on children …

Multicultural Perspectives On Delinquency Etiology And Intervention, Richard E. Redding, Bruce Arrigo

Working Paper Series

In this chapter, we consider the possible reasons for the overrepresentation of African-American youth in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. We review research on discrimination in the justice system and possible differences between African American and White youth in the key risk factors for delinquency that exist at the individual, family, and peer-group and neighborhood levels. Based on these findings, we provide recommendations for treatments and interventions aimed at preventing and reducing offending and justice system involvement among African-American youth.

The Child Client; Representing Children In Child Protective Proceedings, Merril Sobie

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Principled Parentage: Abandoning The Gender-Based Underpinnings Of Legal Parentage Analysis As Applied In The Context Of Gestational Surrogacy, Jennifer A. Kimball

ExpressO

While reproductive technology has provided new options for women who want children, our legal understanding of parentage is still informed by the traditional conception model of two parents: one male and one female. A parent who both is a biological parent and has developed a parent-child relationship with a genetic child ought to be considered a legal parent as well. This conclusion ought not to be vulnerable to attack based on the gender of the other parent; rather, each parent’s claims should be evaluated independently. When gender becomes irrelevant and we abandon the gender-based underpinnings of legal parentage analysis as …

The New "Fetal Protection": The Wrong Answer To The Crisis Of Inadequate Health Care For Women And Children, Linda C. Fentiman

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This article will expand upon the feminist critique by focusing on children's health as well as the health and liberty interests of their mothers. In the first part of this article, I examine the legal and cultural underpinnings of “fetal protection” and explore its current manifestations. In the second part, I place “fetal protection” in a broader context, documenting the ways in which American law currently promotes fetal life, while simultaneously neglecting the lives and health of born children. The third part of the article offers concrete recommendations about how government, both state and federal, can actually achieve the goal …

The Child Client: Representing Children In Child Protective Proceedings, Merril Sobie

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Child Laundering: How The Intercountry Adoption System Legitimizes And Incentivizes The Practices Of Buying, Trafficking, Kidnapping, And Stealing Children, David M. Smolin

ExpressO

This article documents and analyzes a substantial incidence of "child laundering" within the intercountry adoption system. Child laundering occurs when children are taken illegally from birth families through child buying or kidnapping, and then "laundered" through the adoption system as "orphans" and then "adoptees." The article then proposes reforms to the intercountry adoption system that could substantially reduce the incidence of child laundering.

Reconceptualizing Due Process In Criminal Justice: Contributions From Law And Social Science, Christopher Slobogin

ExpressO

This article challenges the accepted wisdom, at least since the Supreme Court’s decision in Gault, that procedures in juvenile delinquency court should mimic the adult criminal process. The legal basis for this challenge is Gault itself, as well as the other Supreme Court cases that triggered the juvenile justice revolution of the past decades, for all of these cases relied on the due process clause, not the provisions of the Constitution that form the foundation for adult criminal procedure. That means that the central goal in juvenile justice is fundamental fairness, which does not have to be congruent with the …

Deterring Roper’S Juveniles: Why Immature Criminal Youth Require The Death Penalty More Than Adults – A Law & Economics Approach, Moin A. Yahya

ExpressO

In Roper v. Simmons, the United States Supreme Court declared the death penalty for juveniles unconstitutional. It relied on three reasons, one of which concerns this article, namely the theory that juveniles are less culpable and deterrable than adults. The Court relied on the American Medical Association’s amicus brief which purported to show scientifically that juveniles had less developed brains than adults. The Court characterized juveniles as being risk-lovers who highly preferred the present over the future, who loved gains no matter how risky but did not care for losses, and who could not engage in proper cost-benefit analysis, because …

The Coalescence Of Law And Science In An Era Of School Drug Testing: Beyond Vernonia, Earls, And Joye, George S. Yacoubian

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

The Disability Integration Presumption: Thirty Years Later, Ruth Colker

The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law Working Paper Series

The fiftieth anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision has spurred a lively debate about the merits of “integration.” This article brings that debate to a new context – the integration presumption under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”). The IDEA has contained an “integration presumption” for more than thirty years under which school districts should presumptively educate disabled children with children who are not disabled in a fully inclusive educational environment. This article traces the history of this presumption and argues that it was borrowed from the racial civil rights movement without any empirical justification. In …

The W Visa: A Legislative Proposal For Female And Child Refugees Trapped In A Post-9/11 World, Marisa S. Cianciarulo

Working Paper Series

This article addresses an urgent humanitarian crisis affecting unaccompanied or abused refugee children and widowed, divorced, abandoned or abused female heads of refugee households. Such women and children suffer the consequences of the post-9/11 U.S. refugee resettlement backlog more severely than the general refugee population. They are far more at risk of life-threatening harm such as trafficking, sexual exploitation and rape. Moreover, they are far less likely to present a threat to U.S. national security than many people who are able to secure visas to the United States quickly and with fewer background checks. Despite their vulnerability and lack of …