Juvenile Law Center

Briefed the issue of constitutionality of a state certification statute that requires juveniles, in violation of their right to due process and against self-incrimination, to admit guilt in order to rebut the presumption of certification to adult court.

Argued that a juvenile’s 75-year sentence for a crime in which the victims suffered no serious injury is disproportionate and violates state, federal and international law.

Argued that a provision in New Mexico state law allowing juveniles to be sentenced by juvenile court judges as adults if the judge found them “not amenable to treatment” was unconstitutional under the Sixth Amendment.

Juvenile Law Center and two private attorneys filed this brief on behalf of an eleven-year-old charged with the murder of his stepmother. The brief argued that the trial court’s interpretation of the transfer statute requiring the juvenile’s confession at the pre-adjudicatory decertification hearing in order to demonstrate his ability to be rehabilitated in the juvenile system was in violation of his right against self-incrimination and rights to due process and fundamental fairness under both the Pennsylvania and United States Constitutions.