Summer 2025 Resource Library Updates
The Gault Center has been regularly updating our Resource Library, where you will find up-to-date youth defense resources to enhance your practice and advocacy. Below are some notable publications from the past few months that may be of interest to youth defense advocates. Please note that some of these resources are only available to registered youth defense users; to access, please log in or register on the Gault Center’s website.
From the Gault Center:
The Gault Center submitted an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of Ohio on a case involving a young person’s right to appeal a competence and transfer determination in juvenile court after entering a guilty plea in adult court. Outlining procedural justice arguments and the constitutional right to a competency and transfer hearing, the brief argues that young people must retain their right to challenge systemic violations of their core constitutional rights in juvenile court. The brief also analyzes the county’s juvenile court system based on the National Youth Defense System Standards and finds that youth in Cuyahoga County have been “routinely processed in a system with structural deficiencies that distort due process and frustrate its core principles of fairness”—emphasizing the critical need to preserve the right to appeal as a mechanism of accountability. This brief is an example of ways youth defenders may challenge the everyday systemic injustices youth face in juvenile court using the System Standards as a framework.
Caselaw Update:
People v. Taylor, 2025 Mich. LEXIS 603 (Mich. 2025)
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 olds is disproportionate given the scientific consensus that “the late-adolescent brain carries exceptional neuroplasticity during this crucial stage of cognitive development, which has ‘significant consequences for young adults’ behavior.’” Noting that this stage of development “blurs the already thin societal line between childhood and young adulthood,” the Court held that sentencing a young adult to mandatory LWOP without first considering their late adolescent brain development no longer aligns with the “evolving standards of decency that mark that progress of a maturing society.” This decision marks a trend of courts recognizing the legal significance of late adolescent brain development and extending heightened legal protections based on the developmental realities of youth and young adults.
State v. D.S.H, 339 Ore. App. 596 (Or. Ct. App. 2025)
On April 9, 2025, the Oregon Court of Appeals found that a probation condition ordering a youth “to follow probation conditions as designated by OYA [the Oregon Youth Authority]” was legally insufficient to determine whether a young person violated a term of their probation. The Court explained, “without knowing what probation conditions OYA had actually designated for youth, the court had no objective measure by which to evaluate youth’s conduct, and youth’s ability to show that he had not violated his probation conditions was compromised.” Relying on the Due Process Clause, the Court held that youth are entitled to notice of their conditions and any violation of probation must be tied to an actual probation condition. This decision offers a legal rationale for pushing back against courts giving blanket authority to probation departments to set their own probation conditions without adequate notice to the youth.
State v. Knowles, 2025 MT 107 (Mont. 2025)
The Supreme Court of Montana reversed a trial court’s decision denying a sentence reduction for a young adult who was convicted of a homicide offense when he was 16 years old. Noting that transferring a youth to adult court cannot mean that the state “forget[s] about his age,” the Court relies on the juvenile court purpose clause to recognize that youth must be afforded heightened protections given their diminished culpability and likelihood of rehabilitation, which must be considered at sentencing. This decision demonstrates the power of looking to juvenile court purpose clauses to argue for heightened and differential protections for youth.
From the Field:
2025 Kids Count Data Book: State Trends in Child Well-Being
The Annie E. Casey Foundation released its annual Kids Count Data Book, which offers a national analysis on four indicators of child wellbeing: economic wellbeing, education, health, and family and community. This report is part of the Kids Count Data Center, which provides demographic and wellbeing data on children and families. This report includes data on racial disparities across the indicators of wellbeing, highlighting structural impediments to wellbeing based on race. As an example, this report found that one in five Black and Native/Indigenous youth lived in high-poverty areas between 2019 and 2023, which is twice the national rate. This resource offers youth defenders a framework to advocate for youth wellbeing in juvenile court and key datapoints to highlight racial disparities on structural barriers to wellbeing.
From Punishment to Prevention: A Better Approach to Addressing Youth Gun Possession
The Sentencing Project released a report on adolescent gun possession cases, highlighting the harms of punishment and calling for comprehensive community-based initiatives to reduce gun violence. This report offers research on the reasons why youth carry guns, ranging from peer influence to past experiences of trauma and walks through how juvenile court systems typically respond to gun possession cases. Based on a national survey of youth defenders and a review of local court practices, this report finds that gun possession cases are increasingly handled with rigidity and harshness—youth are often categorically denied diversion opportunities, regularly transferred to adult court, and placed in locked facilities for gun possession cases. Such punitive responses ignore young people’s perceived need for protection, deepen racial inequities, and are counterproductive to achieving public safety. Accordingly, this report calls for an increase in the use of diversion and a reduction in the use of detention and adult prosecution for youth gun possession cases, in addition to increased investment in community-based initiatives. This report offers key research and evidence on the realities of gun violence, harms of punitive responses for gun possession cases, and effective community-based solutions for youth defenders to incorporate in their advocacy.
Immature Minds in a “Maturing Society”
Following the 20th anniversary of the Roper v. Simmons decision that ruled the death penalty unconstitutional for youth under the age of 18, the Death Penalty Information Center released a report on the latest science of adolescent brain development and evolving societal standards that recognize the need for heightened legal protections for 18- to 20-year-olds. This report covers persistent racial disparities in the use of the death penalty, particularly as applied to 18- to 20-year-olds, and calls for sentencing relief for young adults based on their youthfulness. This report offers an overview of the developmental jurisprudence, racial disparities in sentencing, and the latest science on the developmental realities of emerging adults. While this resource is primarily focused on the adult system, it highlights the importance of advocating for heightened legal protections based on adolescent development research for youth defenders to further advance in juvenile court.
In Other News:
Strategies for Helping Black Trans Youth Surmount Structural Violence
The American Bar Association Human Rights Magazine featured an article written by D Dangaran and Daniella Carter about the discrimination-to-incarceration pipeline. This article talks about the structural barriers and anti-trans biases that lead trans children into the foster system, homelessness, and incarceration, creating a cycle of structural violence that disproportionately harms Black trans children—a pipeline that directly impacted Daniella Carter. This article calls for “collective action through a more holistic approach to understanding the trans youth experience” and calls for policymakers, judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys to protect the rights of transgender youth. Specifically, the article states, “We need defense attorneys to bring the full life history of Black trans youth and others from marginalized social backgrounds into the holistic defense of those individuals in criminal cases.” This article walks through the personal journey of Daniella Carter and offers a powerful call to action to fight against the discrimination-to-incarceration pipeline to ensure the rights and wholeness of trans youth are protected, “allowing them to seek rest and liberation alike.”
