Adolescent Development
This amicus brief by Juvenile Law Center and The Gault Center argues Illinois automatic transfer law does not comply with recent research and findings on adolescent development as recognized by the Supreme Court jurisprudence in Roper and Graham. Further, amici argue the state’s automatic transfer statute violates the proportionality clause of Article I, Section 11…
This amicus brief by Juvenile Law Center and others argues young people are different for purposes of the Miranda custody analysis and the Supreme Court should afford young people Constitutional protections in light of Supreme Court jurisprudence on interrogations and recently under the 8th Amendment as well as social science research about the particular vulnerability…
This amicus brief by Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth, Juvenile Law Center, and others argues that a juvenile court adjudication should not be used to enhance a sentence in adult court under Apprendi v. New Jersey, 530 U.S. 466 (2000), because a juvenile court adjudication lacks the same reliability as a criminal conviction, and…
This amicus brief by The Gault Center, Children’s Law Center, Inc., and the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio Foundation, Inc. argues mandating young people to register on sex offender registries is improper since youth adjudicated of sex offenses are vastly different from adults convicted of sex offenses, registries frustrate the purpose of juvenile court,…
This amicus brief by The Gault Center, Juvenile Law Center, and National Center for Lesbian Rights argue that strict liability statutes run counter to the principles of adolescent development. Here, amici argue that a 12-year old child who engaged in non-forcible sexual conduct with his peer, who was then prosecuted under a strict liability sex…
The U.S. Supreme Court held juvenile life without parole for non-homicide offenses violates the 8th Amendment and offered the following language in support. “Roper established that because juveniles have lessened culpability they are less deserving of the most severe punishments. 543 U.S., at 569, 125 S. Ct. 1183, 161 L. Ed. 2d 1. As compared…
The American Psychological Association’s (APA’s) stance on the psychological maturity of adolescents has been criticized as inconsistent. In its Supreme Court amicus brief in Roper v. Simmons (2005), which abolished the juvenile death penalty, APA described adolescents as developmentally immature. In its amicus brief in Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990), however, which upheld adolescents’ right to…
This amicus brief by The Juvenile Law Center, The Gault Center, and others highlights the unique developmental status of youth, relevant social science research, and Supreme Court Jurisprudence, that make a life without parole sentence for non-homicide crimes unconstitutional in violation of the 8th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As stated in their brief: “The…
An expert affidavit from Professor Franklin Zimring outlining relevant data, studies and research supporting that youth who are charged with sex offenses in juvenile court should not be subject to sex offender registry requirements or stigmatization that comes with sex offense adjudications. The affidavit analyzes recent studies highlighting that “the empirical research to date supports…
In this research article from Child Development, age differences in future orientation are examined in a sample of 935 individuals between 10 and 30 years using a delay discounting task as well as a new self-report measure. Younger adolescents consistently demonstrate a weaker orientation to the future than do individuals aged 16 and older, as…
This law review article from the publication Psychology, Public Policy and Law, looks at juvenile Miranda warnings and the comprehensibility of the warnings as applied to young people. From the Introduction: “Annually, more than 1.5 million [youth] offenders are arrested and routinely Mirandized with little consideration regarding the comprehensibility of these warnings. The current investigation…
This amicus brief by The Gault Center and others argues Nevada’s certification statute violates a child’s right to effective assistance of counsel as it interferes with counsel’s ability to plan and participate in the adversarial fact-finding process and it fails to measure up to essentials of due process and fair treatment. Furthermore, amici argue this…
It has been hypothesized that sensation seeking and impulsivity, which are often conflated, in fact develop along different timetables and have different neural underpinnings, and that the difference in their timetables helps account for heightened risk taking during adolescence. In order to test these propositions, the authors examined age differences in sensation seeking and impulsivity…
“Prior research describes the development of susceptibility to peer pressure in adolescence as following an inverted U-shaped curve, increasing during early adolescence, peaking around age 14, and declining thereafter. This pattern, however, is derived mainly from studies that specifically examined peer pressure to engage in antisocial behavior. In the present study, age differences and developmental…
On May 11, 2007, the Senate passed a resolution commemorating the 40th anniversary of the In re Gault decision, which upheld the right to counsel for children in juvenile court. The resolution reiterates the Supreme Court’s holding that juvenile court proceedings must “meet the essential requirements of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment to the…
From the introduction: “This brief tells the story of how the four Models for Change states—Pennsylvania, Illinois, Louisiana, and Washington—are already moving to reform and reshape their own state juvenile justice systems. These states have demonstrated strong leadership in juvenile justice policy, value collaboration and engagement, and because of their efforts, have changed the political…
This article examines the legal history and social contexts of testimony and interrogation involving young people, developmental research on suggestibility and judgment, interactions between development and legal/sociological contexts, and the reasoning behind how young people are treated in different legal contexts. The authors argue (a) that young witnesses, victims, and suspects alike possess youthful characteristics…
This study examined the relationship of legal capacities to cognitive development, legal learning opportunities, and psychological symptoms. Participants were 152 male and female [adolescents] charged in juvenile court proceedings and held in detention, aged 11–17. The youth completed Grisso’s Instruments for Assessing Understanding and Appreciation of Miranda Rights, the Fitness Interview Test (Revised Edition), the…
From the introduction: “The authors use a developmental perspective to examine questions about the criminal culpability of juveniles and the juvenile death penalty. Under principles of criminal law, culpability is mitigated when the actor’s decision making capacity is diminished, when the criminal act was coerced, or when the act was out of character. The authors…
The delinquent act itself is often the primary basis for determining intention and competency of children under 18 in adult or juvenile court. But behaviors result from one or more of a diverse range of factors, each of which has different effects on decision-making. The capacity of juveniles to plan or to stop an action…
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