Recent news

Governor Wolf is expected to soon sign a second bill into law to help vulnerable foster youth better succeed. Act 75 of 2015 was signed into law on December 10th and HB 1603 will be signed within days. Both bills are in response to the federal Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act, which mandates states to implement policies that protect youth from harm and improve their ability to develop skills, talents and connections with family and community.

Washington, D.C. – President Obama today signed into law the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which is the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the first major overhaul of federal education law in over a decade.

Washington, D.C. - The United States Senate has approved a groundbreaking amendment to the Every Child Achieves Act, a bi-partisan bill reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

Juvenile Law Center is pleased to announce that Susan Vivian Mangold, Professor of Law at SUNY Buffalo Law School, will become its next Executive Director effective October 14, 2015.

Juvenile Law Center, the nation’s oldest non-profit public interest law firm for children, is seeking a new Executive Director.

Late yesterday, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania granted plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment against former Luzerne County Juvenile Court Judge Mark Ciavarella, the judge at the center of the now infamous 'kids for cash' scandal. Specifically, U.S. District Court Judge A. Richard Caputo found that Ciavarella violated the constitutional rights of the children who appeared before him to an impartial tribunal, as guaranteed by the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

In a landmark ruling for Pennsylvania, York County Court of Common Pleas Judge John C. Uhler ruled yesterday that Pennsylvania's recently enacted law requiring that juveniles convicted of sexual offenses be subjected to lifetime sex offender registration, violates their rights under various provisions of the Pennsylvania and United States Constitutions, as well as Pennsylvania's Juvenile Act.

We are deeply disappointed that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has decided not to follow the ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in Miller v. Alabama, that juveniles convicted of homicide can no longer receive mandatory sentences of life without parole. The decision also ignores the trend in both state and federal courts to find Miller retroactive.