Posts in 'Amicus Curiae'

Michael Anthony Howard was sentenced as an adult to 70 years in prison for murder. He was 15 years old at the time of the offense. Texas law requires Mr. Howard to serve 30 years in prison before he may be eligible for parole. Mr. Howard’s case is now on appeal before Texas’ Eighth Court of Appeals.

Juvenile Law Center joined the National Association of Counsel for Children, the ACLU, and Youth Law Center in an amicus brief challenging rigid “next friend” requirements that prevent children in the foster system from being able to seek help from the federal courts.

Juvenile Law Center joined the National Center for Youth Law and 16 other human rights advocacy organizations in signing this amicus brief urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to reverse a district court ruling that would require California teachers to disclose their students’ gender-identity information to parents without the students’ consent.

Juvenile Law Center, National Association of Counsel for Children and other amici partners have submitted two briefs in support of Plaintiffs in E.L. et al. v. Adams County Sheriff Gene Claps, et al. in support of Plaintiffs' appeal of the lower court’s decision to deny their motion for a preliminary injunction.

The trial court found M.H., an eleven-year-old girl, incompetent to stand trial yet ordered her detained in the local juvenile detention center for competency restoration. Juvenile Law Center, The Gault Center, and Professor Gia Elise Barboza-Salerno, represented by pro bono counsel Adam VanHo, submitted an amicus brief arguing that detaining M.H. was dangerous and counter-productive.

Juvenile Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed an amicus brief in the Michigan Court of Appeals arguing that Kenneth Malone’s registration under the state’s Sex Offender Registration Act violated the Michigan constitution’s prohibition against “cruel or unusual” punishment, which has been found to be stronger than the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

We argued that a 50-to-75-year term of years sentence for 2nd degree murder imposed on a youthful offender constitutes cruel or unusual punishment in violation of the Michigan Constitution. We further argued that lengthy sentences for adolescents are rare in Michigan, almost exclusively imposed on Black and Brown youth, out of step with the practices of other states, in stark contrast to other nations’ sentencing laws, and do not serve Michigan’s special sentencing goal of rehabilitation.

We challenged the constitutionality of imposing life without parole on an 18-year-old. Our brief argued that Nevada's constitutional protections against cruel or unusual punishments is broader than the Eighth Amendment of the Federal Constitution.

We challenged the constitutionality of imposing mandatory life without parole on a 19-year-old. Our brief argued that based on the text and the history of Section 6 and Nevada’s general history of protecting individual rights, Nevada’s protections against cruel or unusual punishments is broader than the Eighth Amendment of the Federal Constitution.

The amicus brief explains how garnishing funds from small deposits made to inmates accounts by loved ones imposes unnecessary, and wide-reaching, harms on incarcerated people and their families, prohibits rehabilitation, and creates more unsafe prison conditions.