Documents
- Jackson and Miller fact sheet, Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth (pdf)
- Marsha Levick, "From a Trilogy to a Quadrilogy: Miller v. Alabama Makes It Four in a Row for U.S. Supreme Court Cases That Support Differential Treatment of Youth," Criminal Law Reporter, 91 CrL 748 (Sept 2012) (pdf)
In Graham v. Florida, the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is unconstitutional to impose life without parole sentences for juveniles convicted of non-homicide offenses, largely because developmental and scientific research show that juveniles possess a greater capacity for rehabilitation, change, and growth than adults, and are less culpable for their criminal conduct. In Miller v. Alabama, the Court then held that mandatory life without parole for those under the age of 18 at the time of their crime (including homicide offenses) violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments.”
NACDL, in partnership with Juvenile Law Center, the National Juvenile Defender Center and the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, and with support from the Foundation for Criminal Justice and the Ford Foundation presents a series of trainings on all aspects of these important new developments in juvenile law. They provide essential instruction for lawyers representing a juvenile at sentencing in adult court and lawyers handling the resentencing of an individual previously sentenced to juvenile life without parole.
Speakers: Stephen Harper, Co-coordinator, Capital Litigation Unit, Miami-Dade, Florida Public Defender's Office; Carol Kolinchak, Legal Director, Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana; Sonya Rudenstine, Gainesville, Florida; and Marsha Levick (moderator), Co-founder, Deputy Director, and Chief Counsel, Juvenile Law Center
See the next session in this series
Check out the subsequent series, Age Matters: Strategies for Representing Juveniles in Adult Court
- Communicating with a Juvenile Client: JTIP Lesson on Interviewing and Counseling Youth
- Incorporating Adolescent Brain & Behavioral Development Science into All Stages of the Criminal Proceeding
- Strategies for Keeping Youth out of Adult Jails and Prisons: Bail, Sentencing and Post-Sentencing Advocacy