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 that the PA Juvenile Act authorizes child welfare courts to retain jurisdiction over foster children aged 18 to 21 and to order agencies to continue to serve those youth in a course of treatment or instruction.
Juvenile Law Center’s brief addressed whether statements made in response to law-enforcement questioning while youth was in court-ordered treatment were involuntary.
Juvenile Law Center briefed the issue of constitutionality under the U.S. and Pennsylvania Constitutions of the imposition of a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole on a teenager.
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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