The Michigan 1st District Court of Appeals vacated second-degree murder and assault with the intent to commit murder sentences for an individual who was 18 years old at the time of the incident and remanded with instructions for the trial court to consider youthfulness and its attendant characteristics as mitigating factors. The court stated in…
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On April 10, 2025, the Supreme Court of Michigan extended its 2022 decision in People v. Parks, which declared mandatory life without parole (LWOP) for 18-year-olds unconstitutional, to also apply to 19- and 20-year-olds. Relying on the state’s constitutional prohibition against “cruel or unusual punishment,” the Court found that mandatory LWOP for 19- and 20-years…
On February 28, 2025, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that the trial court’s denial of a racial justice expert violated a young person’s due process rights to present a defense. This case involved an altercation between two middle school students involving the use of a racial slur and other racially derogatory comments. Defense counsel…
From the conclusion: “For the reasons discussed, Miller and its progeny have rendered Eads’s term-of-years sentence invalid under both the Michigan Constitution and our state’s proportionality requirement. He is entitled to be resentenced in a manner that comports with this jurisprudence and duly accounts for his youth and its attendant characteristics at the time he…
In this amicus brief (and a companion brief filed in Michigan v. Andrew Czarnecki), Fair and Just Prosecution urges the Michigan Supreme Court to extend 19- and 20-year olds its finding that life without parole sentences for young people violate state and federal constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
From the abstract: “Roughly one in four juveniles arrested in the U.S. spend time in a detention center prior to their court date. To study the consequences of this practice for youth, we link the universe of individual public school records in Michigan to juvenile and adult criminal justice records. Using a combination of exact…
From the abstract: “Roughly one in four juveniles arrested in the U.S. spend time in a detention center prior to their court date. To study the consequences of this practice for youth, we link the universe of individual public school records in Michigan to juvenile and adult criminal justice records. Using a combination of exact…
On March 20, 2014, the DOJ filed a Statement of Interest in a federal conditions lawsuit on behalf young people under the age of 18 confined in the Michigan Department of Corrections, alleging violations of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). The DOJ emphasizes that “[s]tate correctional facilities. . . are subject to both the…
