Recent news

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 right 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. Ciavarella is currently serving a 28-year federal prison sentence following his criminal conviction in February 2011 on charges arising out of the scandal.

On January 5, 2014, the New York Times published an editorial entitled Zero Tolerance, Reconsidered, decrying zero tolerance policies in schools. The editorial echoes other recent commentary as well as numerous studies and reports making the same point. Sadly, despite widespread demands for change, we see little progress on the horizon and the stories continue to make headlines.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) includes a provision that provides health insurance to some former foster youth until age 26.  This provision became effective on January 1, 2014. 

The following documents have been released by the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare to provide guidance to stakeholders, including youth, on the implementation of this provision.

We are excited to share with you the newly released movie trailer for "Kids for Cash," featuring Juvenile Law Center's own Marsha Levick and Bob Schwartz. This critically acclaimed film will be premiering in theaters in February 2014. The film chronicles the infamous Luzerne County "kids-for-cash" case and is a powerful indictment of America's love affair with zero tolerance policies, our destructive school-to-prison pipeline and misuse of the juvenile justice system. 

Juvenile Law Center goes international! 

In a response to the Department of Health and Human Services about a project on personal searches of young people in custody, Elizabeth Daly, the Acting Commissioner for Children in Tasmania, Australia, cited an article written by Juvenile Law Center Supervising Attorney Jessica Feierman and Staff Attorney Riya Shah on strip-searching youth in detention.

Here at Juvenile Law Center, we're gearing up for a busy December. Below are details on three not-to-be-missed educational events taking place next month. 

On November 14, 2013, Juvenile Law Center Supervising Attorney Jessica Feierman facilitated a national webinar, "The Uninterrupted Scholars Act: Promising Information-Sharing Practices."

In a landmark ruling for Pennsylvania, York County Court of Common Pleas Judge John C. Uhler ruled on November 4, 2013 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.

The American Bar Association Section of Litigation's Children's Rights Litigation Committee has released the latest podcast in its "Starting and Building a Children's Legal Services Practice" series. 

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.