Juvenile Law Commons^™

Parameters Of Child Protective Services In The Commercial Sexual Exploitation Of Minors, Taliah Ahdut

Seattle University Law Review

The purpose of this Note is to critique the current paradigm in place for resolving the sex trafficking of youth in Washington and compare it to the current model utilized in Minnesota. The Minnesota model should be used to provide a framework for Washington to revise its current model because Washington’s current model allows for sexually exploited youth to be funneled in and out of the criminal justice system, limiting the chances for trafficked victims to reach out to members of the community for assistance. These changes could ultimately increase the opportunities for trafficked youth and position them in the …

An Exposition Of The Effectiveness Of And The Challenges Plaguing Maine's Juvenile Drug Treatment Court Program, Jason E. Rayne

Maine Law Review

Since 1989, trial courts across the United States have been developing and implementing the drug court model. Drug courts are treatment-based programs that are considered less adversarial than traditional methods of adjudication. By early in the new millennium, drug courts had “achieved considerable local support and [had] provided intensive, long-term treatment services to offenders with long histories of drug use and criminal justice contacts, previous treatment failures, and high rates of health and social problems.” Drug courts were developed in part to quell the trend of prison overcrowding associated with America’s increased “war on drugs” during the 1980s. Courts were …

Stories Told And Untold: Confidentiality Laws And The Master Narrative Of Child Welfare, Matthew I. Fraidin

Maine Law Review

In most states, child welfare hearings and records are sealed or confidential. This means that by law, court hearings and records may not be observed. The same laws and court rules also preclude those who are authorized to enter and watch from discussing anything learned or observed in a closed courtroom or from a sealed court record with anyone not involved in the case. It is the restriction on speech—on telling stories about child welfare—with which this Article is concerned. I will argue in this Article that the insights of narrative theory and agenda-setting studies help us understand the damaging …

"Sweet Childish Days": Using Developmental Psychology Research In Evaluating The Admissibility Of Out-Of-Court Statements By Young Children, Lynn Mclain

Maine Law Review

Young children are frequently precluded from testifying at trial on the grounds of incompetency because they cannot answer questions about abstract concepts regarding “truth” and “lies.” In this situation, should the child’s earlier, out-of-court statements disclosing the abuse and identifying the abuser also be inadmissible? The stakes are huge. If young children cannot testify, and their out-of-court statements are precluded, they simply become safe prey, unprotected by the judicial system. The pivotal question becomes, are there procedures that can ensure fairness both to children and to their alleged abusers? This article argues that a child’s testimonial incapacity at trial ought …

Looking At Justice Through A Lens Of Healing And Reconnection, Annalise Buth, Lynn Cohn

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Panel Discussion: Expanding Our Conception Of Justice

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

The Problem With Inference And Juvenile Defendants, Jenny E. Carroll

Florida State University Law Review

Much of criminal law relies on proof by inference. The value of evidence frequently lies in what it suggests as much as what it shows. An outstretched hand in a dark alley is either an illicit drug deal or a handshake; a semi-coherent moan is either encouragement of, or resistance to, a sexual advance; shouted words to "fuck up" a school principal could be either a promise of harm to come or meaningless bravado. In criminal law, fact finders untangle not only what happened, but why it happened, or perhaps more accurately, what the defendant's state of mind was when …

The Problem With Inference For Juvenile Defendants, Jenny E. Carroll

Faculty Scholarship

Much of criminal law relies on proof by inference. In criminal law, fact finders untangle not only what happened, but why it happened. It is answering the “why” question that places an act and its result on the legal spectrum of liability. To reach that answer, the fact finder must engage in an interpretive act, considering not only what can be seen or heard, but the significance of that testimony or physical evidence in real world contexts – the world in which they occurred but also the fact finder’s own world. Recent developments in neuroscience suggest that in the context …

Child Welfare's Scarlet Letter: How A Prior Termination Of Parental Rights Can Permanently Brand A Parent As Unfit, Vivek S. Sankaran

Articles

In many jurisdictions, once a parent has her rights terminated to one child, the State can use that decision to justify the termination of parental rights to another child. The State can do so regardless of whether the parent is fit to parent the second child. This article explores this practice, examines its origins, and discusses its constitutional inadequacies.

Spare The Rod, Save A Child: Why The Supreme Court Should Revisit Ingraham V. Wright And Protect The Substantive Due Process Rights Of Students Subjected To Corporal Punishment, Lekha Menon

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

You Learn What You Live: Prevalence Of Childhood Adversity In The Lives Of Juveniles Arrested For Sexual Offenses, Jill S. Levenson, Michael Baglivio, Kevin T. Wolff, Nathan Epps, William Royall, Katherine C. Gomez, Dahlia Kaplan

Publications and Research

Social workers often find themselves working with children or adolescents who have been victims of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including youths who have ended up in the juvenile justice system. Childhood trauma has been linked to negative health, mental health, and behavioral outcomes across the lifespan. The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence rates of child maltreatment and household dysfunction in the lives of juveniles who have been arrested for sexual offenses (JSO; n = 6,549). ACE prevalence rates for JSOs were compared by gender to juveniles arrested for other crimes, to adults arrested for sexual offenses, …

Juveniles Make Bad Decisions, But Are Not Adults & Law Continues To Account For This Difference: The Supreme Court’S Decision To Apply Miller V. Alabama Retroactively Will Have A Significant Impact On Many Decades Of Reform And Current Debate Around Juvenile Sentencing, Danielle Petretta

Pace Law Review

In January 2016, the Supreme Court made a monumental decision, reflecting the notion that juveniles are not adults. For years, courts have been grappling with the notion that juveniles are not adults. The Supreme Court has finally published an opinion that will have extreme implications on the juvenile justice system.

Part I of this Note will discuss the birth of the juvenile justice system. Part II of this Note will briefly introduce the recent oral argument heard before the Supreme Court regarding whether the Supreme Court will apply Miller v. Alabama retroactively or non-retroactively. Part III will discuss the history …

Juvenile False Confessions: Juvenile Psychology, Police Interrogation Tactics, And Prosecutorial Discretion, Marco Luna

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Juvenile Lifers And Juveniles In Michigan Prisons: A Population Of Special Concern, Kimberly A. Thomas

Articles

Prisoners serving life without parole for offenses they committed when they were juveniles have received much attention after the United States Supreme Court found in Miller v Alabama that mandatory life without parole for juveniles violated the Eighth Amendment and found that its Miller decision applied retroactively. Courts have begun the process of sentencing and resentencing these individuals, some of whom are still teens and some of whom have served 40 years or more in the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC). All told, not including new cases that come before the court, approximately 370 prisoners will receive individualized sentences under …

The New Orleans Fight Against Gun Violence, Taylor E. Berry

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Gun violence in New Orleans has grown exponentially over the years. As a society we often forget to reflect on how gun violence effects the youth in our communities. Local members of the community in New Orleans have decided to come together to form organizations that can produce better outcomes for the youth in the New Orleans area, two of those organizations being Son of A Saint and the Youth Empowerment Project. Both of these organizations have started the journey to decreasing the amount of gun violence in the city.

Parents’ Perceptions Of The Lancaster Family Treatment Drug Court, Leah Engquist, Melanie Fessinger, Katherine Hazen

UCARE: Research Products

Juvenile dependency courts deal with cases that have allegations of child abuse or neglect by a parent or guardian. Lancaster's Family Treatment Drug Court (FTDC) is a problem-solving court that deals with cases of child abuse or neglect related to substance abuse. Parents on this track receive monthly team meetings, specialized services, and corrective measures. The research question of this evaluation was: "Do parents on the Family Treatment Drug Court perceive the court process more positively than parents who are not on the track (control)?" 144 parents completed an 11 item survey following their court hearings. Overall, both FTDC and …

You Are Now Entering The School Zone, Proceed With Caution: Educators, Arbitration, & Children’S Rights, Raquel Muniz

Arbitration Law Review (2009 - Present)

No abstract provided.

Anti-Bullying Policies And Disparities In Bullying: A State-Level Analysis, Mark L. Hatzenbuehler, Javier E. Flores, Joesph E. Cavanaugh, Angela Onwuachi-Willig, Marizen R. Ramirez

Faculty Scholarship

Recent research suggests that anti-bullying laws may be effective in reducing risk of bullying victimization among youth, but no research has determined whether these laws are also effective in reducing disparities in bullying. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the effectiveness of anti-bullying legislation in reducing disparities in sex- and weight-based bullying and cyberbullying victimization.

The Effects Of Employment On Recidivism Among Delinquent Juveniles, Leigh Kassem

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Current research indicates an association between intense adolescent work (twenty hours or more per week) and delinquent behavior. It has been widely speculated that this relationship is spurious, occurring only as a result of other factors which are common to both offending and intense employment. The current study attempts to fill a gap in the literature by utilizing the Pathways to Desistance dataset to examine the evolution of the relationship between work and self-reported offending in a longitudinal sample of juvenile offenders. Work intensity and consistency, social capital, and expectations for success were analyzed as potential predictors of recidivism or …

Appealing To Empathy: Counsel's Obligation To Present Mitigating Evidence For Juveniles In Adult Court, Beth Caldwell

Maine Law Review

Media representations of youth as “superpredators” and “monsters” fuel public fear of juvenile offenders. These depictions infiltrate public consciousness and promote widespread misconceptions about the prevalence of youth crime and the nature of juvenile delinquents. In public discourse, youth who break the law are characterized as hardened criminals who will continue to prey upon innocent victims unless they are incarcerated. However, a closer examination of the life stories of young people who commit serious crimes reveals histories characterized a lawyer’s job is to uncover these stories and to tell them in a compelling way. The effective presentation of mitigating information …

Pushing The Limits: Reining In Ohio's Residency Restrictions For Sex Offenders, Taurean J. Shattuck

Cleveland State Law Review

The danger to children posed by convicted sex offenders living near schools, parks, and bus stops has been greatly exaggerated by the media. In turn, many state legislatures have attempted to find solutions to this perceived problem, imposing sanctions that seem to keep the "problem" at bay. A relatively new approach prevents those convicted of sex crimes from living within a certain distance of places where children congregate. Ohio is one of the states that has adopted this approach. The problem with this approach, however, is that imposing such restrictions on all individuals convicted of certain crimes imposes barriers to …

Inconsistencies In Combatting The Sex Trafficking Of Minors: Backpage’S Deceptive Business Practices Should Not Be Immune From State Law Claims, Jacqueline Hackler

Seattle University Law Review

Under federal law, the CDA has created a loophole for pimps and johns to exploit minors through the Internet. This Note uses Backpage as an example of how interactive computer services consistently evade liability under the current language of the CDA, and examines the need for an amendment to the language of the CDA. This Note argues that an interactive computer service should be held responsible under state law if it helps create the content, thus becoming an “information content provider” under the CDA. Part I provides the groundwork for what sex trafficking is and its relationship to prostitution. Additionally, …

Procedural Justice For Youth: Discrepancies In The Provision Of Defense Counsel For Youth In The Juvenile Justice System, Emily K. Pelletier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Youth in the juvenile justice system experience racially disparate outcomes at all contact points throughout the system process, despite race-neutral state policies governing the juvenile justice system. States provide defense counsel for indigent youth in the juvenile justice system through policies containing race-neutral language; however, each state maintains different policies protecting youth rights to defense counsel. This study questions the relationships among state policies protecting youth rights to defense counsel, racially disparate outcomes for youth in the juvenile justice system, and state socioeconomic and racial composition. The study relies on content analysis to transform qualitative state policies into quantitative data …

A Guide To Juvenile Appellate Practice In Maine, University Of Maine School Of Law

Youth Justice Clinic

In Maine, juvenile appeals are governed by the Maine Juvenile Code and the Maine Rules of Appellate Procedure. The Juvenile Code broadly dictates the types of rulings that a juvenile may appeal, and the Appellate Rules set out the details of how the appeal must proceed in the Law Court.

The Juvenile Code divides appealable rulings into five categories: adjudications, dispositions, detention orders, orders of deferred disposition, and bind-over orders.[1] An adjudication is appealable to the Law Court by right, as long as the appeal is taken after an order of disposition.[2] An order of disposition or any …

A.J. V. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 28 (June 1, 2017), Briana Martinez

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

NRS 62C.240 is triggered when circumstances surrounding a juvenile’s arrest plainly demonstrate that the juvenile was arrested for prostitution or solicitation even if the juvenile is charged with offenses other than prostitution or solicitation.

The New Unconstitutionality Of Juvenile Sex Offender Registration: Suspending The Presumption Of Constitutionality For Laws That Burden Juvenile Offenders, Spencer Klein

Michigan Law Review

In Smith v. Doe, the Supreme Court held that Alaska’s sex offender registration and notification statute did not constitute punishment and was therefore not susceptible to challenge under the Ex Post Facto Clause. In reaching that conclusion, the Court looked to the seven factors articulated in Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez. To evaluate those factors, the Court applied a presumption of constitutionality, conducting the sort of narrow factual inquiry characteristic of rational basis review. Since Smith, courts have disagreed as to whether sex offender laws are punitive when applied to juveniles, and the Supreme Court has not yet addressed …

Timely Permanency Or Unnecessary Removal?: Tips For Advocates For Children Who Spend Less Than 30 Days In Foster Care, Christopher Church, Monique Mitchell, Vivek Sankaran

Articles

Removal and placement in foster care is child welfare’s most severe intervention, contemplated as “a last resort rather than the first.” Federal law, with an overarching goal of preventing unnecessary removals, bolsters this principle by requiring juvenile and family courts to carefully oversee the removal of children to foster care. Expansive research reminds the field that removal, while often necessary, is not a benign intervention. Physically, legally, and emotionally separating children from their parent(s) can traumatize children in lasting ways. Yet review of federal data concerning children in foster care reveal a troubling narrative: each year, tens of thousands of …

In Re D.T., 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 23 (May 25, 2017), Karson Bright

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Nevada Supreme Court held that the juvenile court properly certified a juvenile as an adult because the seriousness of his offense and his prior adjudications outweighed the subjective factors in Seven Minors. Additionally, the Court held that a court’s certification of cognitively impaired juveniles for adult proceedings does not offend the Eighth Amendment.

Truth Or Dare: A Framework For Analyzing Credibility In Children Seeking Asylum, Karen Smeda

Cornell Law Library Prize for Exemplary Student Research Papers

U.S. border agents detained at least 52,000 unaccompanied minors from only four Central American countries—Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras—in 2014, while 95,000 unaccompanied children sought asylum in Europe in 2015. Given the ongoing turmoil in various parts of the world, these numbers will likely rise. Children are narrowly escaping their native countries. With little help available from legal counsel and little time to gather supporting evidence, more children are relying on the gamble of a positive credibility assessment in an asylum application.

The stakes are high—either a new life in the United States, or probable fatality at home if …

Reforming The Juvenile Justice System: Rehabilitation And Key Factors That Influence Juvenile Crime, Caitlyn Kenville

3690: A Journal of First-Year Student Research Writing

Overview: Aaron Phillips, a man from Pennsylvania, has been in prison for over three decades for a crime he committed when he was seventeen years old. When Aaron was seventeen, he and his friend stole and elderly man’s wallet and pushed him down in the process. Although the man was injured, he was up and walking after his injury. About two and a half weeks after the incident, the elderly man died from cardiac arrest, after having surgery to repair his fractured hip along with a separate intestinal surgery. Aaron was convicted of felony murder and tried as an adult. …