Challenged the zero-tolerance approach to student misbehavior where a teen was sentenced to 100 days in juvenile detention for distributing a poem that mentioned bringing guns to school.
Supreme Court held the execution of juveniles unconstitutional. Juvenile Law Center’s brief argued the developmental differences between adolescents and adults in critical areas, including impulse control and understanding consequences.
Argued against Colorado’s “direct file” statute on the grounds that it violates equal protection guarantees, contravenes separation of powers principles, and denies a defendant due process where statute allows sentencing as an adult following conviction for a crime that would not have made him eligible for adult prosecution.
Certiorari denied in case involving Miranda warnings and whether a youth’s right to a jury trial was violated by a law allowing the imposition of adult sentences on the basis of judicial fact-finding.
Juvenile Law Center briefed and argued the question of the constitutionality of a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole imposed on a 17-year-old in Alabama.
Argued that a sentence of 110 years to life (three consecutive life-terms) for a non-homicide offense committed as a juvenile violates the United States Supreme Court’s ruling in Graham v. Florida.
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