Legal Docket

Juvenile Law Center filed an amicus brief in the Michigan Supreme Court on behalf of Kenya Hyatt, who was sentenced to life without parole under

According to the lower court, the child victim is also the perpetrator of a sex crime against himself. 

Juvenile Law Center, with co-counsel ACLU of Wisconsin and Quarles & Brady, LLP, filed a federal civil rights class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin against Wisconsin juvenile corrections officials and administrators of two correctional facilitates, the Lincoln Hills School for Boys and the Copper Lake School for Girls.

We argued that a 91½-year sentence, requiring at least 45 years served prior to becoming parole eligible, for nonhomicide offenses committed by a juvenile is unconstitutional under Graham because it fails to provide a “meaningful opportunity” for release.

Juvenile Law Center filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court of Ohio on behalf of 12-year-old D.S. Juvenile Law Center argued that Ohio's gross sexual imposition statute – designed in part to protect children who are under age 13 from adult sexual predators – is unconstitutional when applied to children, particularly children who allegedly engage in sexual contact with a peer of similar age.

Along with Atlantic Center for Capital Representation and Wendy L. Williams & Associates, Juvenile Law Center filed an Application for Exercise of Extraordinary Jurisdiction or King's Bench Power on behalf of over 100 juveniles sentenced to JLWOP and then resentenced to 20-to-life terms.

Juvenile Law Center and Center for Law, Brain and Behavior filed an amicus brief supporting Ahmad Bright’s petition for writ of certiorari in the United States Supreme Court. We argued that the opportunity for parole is not an adequate substitute for an individualized sentencing hearing as required by Miller and Montgomery. Furthermore, youth who are accomplices are essentially nonhomicide offenders and, under Graham v. Florida (2010), cannot be sentenced to life without parole sentences.

Amici argued that a life without parole sentence for a juvenile convicted of first degree murder under a theory of accessorial liability is unconstitutional under Graham because such a conviction is the equivalent of a nonhomicide crime since it does not require that the defendant kill or intend to kill.

We argued that Texas’s waiver of jurisdiction standard violates (1) a juvenile’s right to appellate review, (2) due process by denying certain juvenile offenders the right to an individualized determination of amenability to treatment in juvenile court, and (3) equal protection by arbitrarily depriving certain juvenile offenders of the benefits and protections of the juvenile court.

Challenged J.B.'s sentence as against the weight of the evidence; argued that the juvenile court committed a palpable abuse of discretion in reaching key findings unsupported by the record; argued that the juvenile court impermissibly relied on reevaluations of fact and redeterminations of credibility in reaching its holding.