New Jersey
The New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division held that the State failed to meet its burden of proving voluntariness of a youth’s Miranda waiver and reversed the trial court’s denial of defense’s suppression motion. Based on a totality-of-circumstances analysis, the court considered the following factors in making its decision: the youth’s Spanish-speaking mother was present…
The New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division held that when individuals convicted of sex offenses in other states relocate to New Jersey, they are entitled to a hearing assessing whether their out-of-state conviction is “similar to” New Jersey Megan’s Law offenses before indicting individuals for failure to register, pursuant to their due process rights. The…
The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey heard two Motions to Dismiss filed by the Plainfield Public School District, Board of Education, and others, stemming out of a lawsuit filed by fifteen-year-old I.A.’s parents after the detention, search, arrest and prosecution of I.A., by Plainfield school officials and Plainfield Police Officers. In…
Heat Camps: Juvenile Curfews, Extreme Heat & the Eighth Amendment
“For decades, in the summertime, America has confined certain of its youth in what are essentially open-air heat camps. In city after city, camp-form is established through the enactment of warm-weather juvenile curfews which keep the youth at home or in state-sponsored centers during summer nights and, increasingly, during days as well. Local governments justify…
Kids You Throw Away: New Jersey’s Indiscriminate Prosecution of Children as Adults
Human Rights Watch conducted a study on New Jersey’s waiver mechanisms, finding that the state is effectively operating a prosecutorial waiver system that is disproportionately harming Black and Latine youth, sidelining judicial oversight, and prioritizing punishment over treatment. This report offers recommendations for a wide range of system professionals to ultimately end the prosecution of…
The New Jersey Supreme Court held the Family Part did not abuse its discretion when it decided to hear the State’s request for waiver motion before E.S.’s suppression motion. The court declined to adopt a bright line rule for the order in which a Family Part should hear waiver and suppression motions but instead provided…
This amicus brief from American Academy of Pediatric Neuropsychology, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, the Gault Center, and others argues there is no reasonable, scientific basis for drawing the line for adolescence at age 18, and therefore protections from Comer (including reconsideration of lengthy sentences for homicide offenses committed by individuals under 18) should extend to young people who were 18 to 20 years old. Additionally, the brief…
The Court considers a question of first impression — whether a criminal defendant must be provided in-person interpreting services, rather than video remote interpreting (VRI) services, at his jury trial.
From the Introduction: “This Article will focus on the difficulties ex-juvenile offenders face when seeking expungement of their juvenile records to prevent collateral consequences. Specifically, I will argue that a person under the age of eighteen should not be subject to the same statutory expungement bar as adults when seeking an expungement in New Jersey.…
Click here to read the amicus brief and Myers’ supplemental briefs.
This pleading addresses racial bias in the description.
Click here to read Myers and Nyema’s supplemental briefs.