...Bryan Stevenson, in his book, “Just Mercy”, repeatedly writes about the injustices that occur in the juvenile justice system. One of the injustices that he mentions throughout the second half of the book is the life without parole sentence for juveniles. Stevenson spends time talking about a few cases that had important impacts on himself and his fight against unfair sentencings. He also briefly talks about his court case in front of the US Supreme Court. I believe learning the history behind life without parole sentencing for juveniles will allow me to see what Bryan Stevenson was up against, when he argued his case in front of the US Supreme Court. The book had many different aspects about the justice system that interested me. However, it...
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...Every year there are millions of people committing crimes, but the crimes committed by juveniles gets the most attention from the public. During the recent years, more and more teens get sentenced as an adult. They sent teens from the juveniles’ courts to the adult courts. Their crimes are viewed more harshly and critically, which explain the reason why they are being tried as an adult. Many people gave different kind of opinion on this kind of topic, whether or not teens get tried as adults. There are many articles that address this topic and their claim on this controversial topic. Some of the articles that review this matter are “Juveniles Don’t Deserve Life Sentence” by Gail Garinger, “On Punishments and Teen Killers” by Jennifer Jenkins, and “Kids are Kids- Until They Commit Crimes” by Marie Lundstorm. They both have their own opinions and knowledge on this topic. My position in this issue is juveniles don’t deserve to be tried as adults. There has been a relentless amount of fear in the public about juveniles making...
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...while they lay on their beds, he then set the house on fire, drove his grandparents truck and fled with cash and weapons in his possession. The petitioner, Pittman was only 12 years of age when he committed this malicious acts. He was charged with premeditated murder and put on an adult court for trial. Christopher Pittman’s defense team claimed that young Christopher Pittman remained an innocent child because he still could not differentiate what was right or wrong while under influence of Zoloft, an antidepressant. The defense urged the court to consider Pitman a child thus unable to plan and execute premeditated murder as an adult will do. The defense urged the judges to consider an equivalent reaction of a juvenile actions of such magnitude by sending him to a juvenile system where he will be able to get psychiatric treatment alongside rehabilitation and not retributions. However, the prosecutor’s side argued that Christopher Pittman was “diabolical” in arranging...
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...Punishment and Sentencing Abstract In general, a juvenile cannot be tried in an adult court. All states have the ability to try juveniles in adult courts under certain conditions such as statutory exclusion, judicial waiver, and concurrent jurisdiction. In juvenile courts, a juvenile is entitled to Due Process Rights that include a transfer hearing before trial in adult court, notice of charges, and assistance of counsel, amongst others. However, juveniles are not entitled to a trial by jury, mandatory presence of parents during interrogation, and right against preventative detention. Punishment and Sentencing In general, a juvenile cannot be tried in an adult court. Instead, crimes committed by juveniles are handled in special juvenile courts that have limited jurisdiction, which is determine based on the offender being under the age of seventeen and above a state defined minimum age. All states have the ability to try juveniles in adult courts under certain conditions such as statutory exclusion, judicial waiver, and concurrent jurisdiction. Under statutory exclusion, juveniles that are generally older and commit crimes of a serious or violent nature can be tried as an adult. Under a judicial waiver, the juvenile court judge has the ability to send the case to an adult court. State statutes guide the juvenile court judge in determining which cases can be judicially waived. In doing so, a juvenile court judge must hold a waiver hearing to give due process protections...
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...“pendulum” of the juvenile justice system will continue to swing towards rehabilitation. The juvenile court's main focus was to use a more rehabilitation approach instead of restoring to incarceration since juveniles are just kids. With this approach, the juvenile court puts an emphasis on the whole child instead of the offense, used parens patriae as its foundation, discretion of the juvenile's behaviors, and has the judge be the sole determining factor of the juvenile's faith (Cauffman, 2018). Throughout history, it is evident that the pendulum tends to swing back and forth between rehabilitation and punishment, especially within the past century. In fact, cases such as In re Gault and in re Winship, have...
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...History of Juvenile Justice System: “Many people believe juvenile courts were invented to "go easy" on young criminals. The actual reasons are more complicated. The 19th Century reformers who advocated the establishment of juvenile courts were just as interested in crime control as they were in social work. Admittedly, some reformers were motivated by a desire to save growing numbers of poor and homeless children from the streets of America’s cities. Others, however, were mainly interested in removing the legal obstacles that prevented criminal courts from dealing effectively with young hoodlums” http://www.urban.org/publications/307452.html The Juvenile Justice System was founded on the principle that “children are fundamentally different from adults, and that the justice system that deals with them should reflect these differences” (Setting the stage). Two themes make the system: the welfare of young offenders and the protection of public safety. “State legislatures are responsible for establishing juvenile courts and for framing their legal responsibilities. Thus, state lawmakers have the power to decide who falls under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court and who remains under the jurisdiction of the criminal court. At one time, the issue was relatively simple. States merely decided at what age an individual was to be fully responsible for his or her criminal behavior. Offenders above that age were tried as adults in criminal court; those below it went to a juvenile court...
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...“Death Penalty” Furman was a poor black man living in Georgia when he broke into William Joseph Micke, Jr’s house, Mr. Micke went downstairs to investigate and saw William Furman in his house with a gun. Furman began to flee the house but tripped in the process and fired the gun accidently shooting Mr. Micke in the chest and killing him instantly. Furman was later found by the police still carrying the gun and arrested for murder. This case is known as Furman v. Georgia and was taken to the Supreme Court on the fact that the death penalty in Georgia violated the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. This is a landmark case because “The significance of Furman v. Georgia is that this case was the first case that was ruled violating the Eighth amendment and that it halted every man on death row in the United States” (study). But before the case reached the Supreme Court the case went on trial September 20, 1968 where Furman pleaded mentally ill and insane, the court rejected his plea and found him guilty of murder. Then, Furman appealed his conviction and sentence, based on the death penalty in Georgia violating the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution . The Eighth Amendment says the federal government may not use "cruel and unusual punishments” (Henson). The case was later tried in the Supreme Court January 17, 1972. The justices who won majority and reversed the case were William J. Brennan, Jr., William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall, Potter...
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...possibility of parole for juveniles. Sullivan’s case did grant him relief, but currently he is still serving his life term. Aristotle’s Golden Mean is something to note with Sullivan’s case. Aristotle argues that the proper way to behave in an ethical or moral sense is in accordance with the mean (as stated in Banks, 2013, p, 291). Sullivan though mentally handicapped, Aristotle’s view would pose the question of what the “mean” would have been. Sullivan robbed an old woman. This would not be seen as ethical or moral. Bentham however would be looking at the people and the pain it may have caused. Banks (2013) “In other words, we...
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...Proposition 57 was a great idea, giving non violent offenders, which are mostly drug offenses, an opportunity to be released from prison sooner and given parole. The idea of giving prisoners parole through good behavior and education is fair-minded. People who are incarcerated don't deserve to be in prison as long as individuals who commit violent crimes. For example there are many prisoners serving life in prison for nonviolent offenses. Why should non violent offenders serve as much as violent offenders incarcerated? Where is the justification in this? Removing the right for a prosecutors to try a juvenile as an adult without the permission of a judge was also a great idea. Even though some juveniles deserve to be sentenced as an adult...
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...Should Juvenile Be Charged as Adults in Criminal Cases? Robert Horn Post University The purpose of the Adult Criminal Justice system is to punish offenders according to the severity of the crime committed. The juvenile justice system’s aim is to rehabilitate or mentor the juvenile offenders, in the hope that they can prevent further crimes, and to change their behavior. The motivating principle of the juvenile system is rehab. The reason for this is because juveniles are not fully developed, mentally or physically. Many Juvenile offenders come from broken homes, been abused, or come from bad neighborhoods. Juvenile offenders need a second chance, because they have not even received a first chance. Rehabilitation is the best option for them because of the way they would be exploited and turned into criminals if they were sent directly to prison. If given the chance, the Juvenile Justice System can aid in successfully rehabilitating youthful offenders so they are not inclined to commit future crimes. With this reasoning, juveniles cannot be blamed or accountable for their actions the same way adults are. The Justice System fulfills and important function by establishing standards of conduct. It defines what is right and wrong for people and removes them from the responsibility of taking vengeance out on those who wronged them, which deters the escalation of feuds in the community. The Justice System also...
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...change will not be a positive prospect. Section 150(2) of the youth Justice Act 1992 states the sentencing principle that detention is a last resort has been removed. Contradicting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the child, which states that detention and imprisonment should only be used as a last resort" (Unicef Australia 2014). With this new change the judge may sentence the offender to juvenile detention even if other options are available that may also suit the circumstances. Section 208 has also been removed in this process as its statement, “a court may only impose a detention order if satisfied that no other sentence is appropriate in the circumstances of the case.” has been overwritten by this change. Jarrod Bleijie, Queensland Attorney General at the time of this Act, stated that the reason for this change was for “discretion during sentencing.” These measures may help juveniles to stay out of detention”. With less priority on rehabilitating offenders, the judge may give an unfair sentence or length of sentence and the offender will be put into a punishment that does not suit the circumstance. There will be no law to protect this from occurring. The judge may now also choose the length of the sentence without the guide that it must be the shortest possible. As stated by the Queensland Law Society (2014), this will impact upon the judiciary's ability to make sentencing orders that are appropriate to meet the children's individual circumstances. As stated in The...
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...While the main purpose of the adult criminal justice system is to punish the criminal according to the level of his or crime, the aim of the juvenile justice system is to apply rehabilitation or mentoring to juvenile offenders in order to prevent further crimes and to change their delinquent behavior. The core motivating principle of the juvenile system is rehabilitation. This is because juveniles are not fully mentally or physically developed; they cannot be accountable for their actions in the same way as adults. Additionally, many juvenile offenders come from broken homes or bad neighborhoods and many have been abused. They need a second chance because many have not received even a first chance. Additionally, rehabilitation is by far the best option for them because of the way they would almost certainly be exploited and turned into hardened criminals if sent to prison. This paper will provide further background to the issue of rehabilitating juvenile offenders, and strongly argue that it is the right approach. The justice system fulfills an important symbolic function by establishing standards of conduct. It formally defines right and wrong for citizens and frees them from the responsibility of taking vengeance, thus preventing the escalation of feuds within communities. The system protects the rights of free citizens by honoring the principle that individual freedom should not be denied without good reason. Rehabilitation has as its objective...
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...Juveniles convicted as adults: Unconstitutional How does placing a child in an adult prison, where they risk sexual abuse that eventually leads to suicide, teach them a lesson? Juveniles, who commit serious crimes, are usually seen as convicts or criminals who should pay the price of what they committed even if that means sentenced as an adult and occasionally with no parole. Some of these juveniles who are being tried as adults suffered from psychological traumas caused at home by their parents or own family members. People need to know what can be done to prevent these crimes. Placing a juvenile in an adult trial is unconstitutional and is abusing their rights. Many of the juveniles prosecuted as adults are placed in adult jails pretrial, where they are at risk of harm, abuse and suicide. People need to understand the importance and dangers of incarcerating a child in an adult correctional facility. The administration of justice should implement meaningful juvenile justice reforms such as, rehabilitation centers, counseling, and they should correspondingly perform psychological test before being prosecuted in an adult trial so the U.S can uphold the dignity and human rights of our children and ensure that no child in our nation is considered a throwaway person. Juvenile crime rates soared in the mid- 1990s, and that is why every state initiated strict laws against juveniles and began incarcerating minors as adults. That high rates of juvenile delinquency dropped quickly...
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...Should We Eliminate the Special System of Juvenile Justice? Juveniles are considered children under the age of eighteen (18) or sixteen (16) in some states. During adolescence years, children are still trying figure out what is physically happening to their bodies, cope with peer pressure as well as their own emotions. Preteens and teenagers are dependent upon their parents or guardians for direction in teaching them about not handling something that is dangerous or getting them to understand that our actions have consequences, whether good or bad. For reason of juveniles lacking the mental capacity of an adult, they are still developing physically, and they should not be penalized forever for their actions; therefore, we should not eliminate the Special System of Juvenile Justice....
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...American Intercontinental University Individual Project 1 Abstract Victims of crimes come in all ages, race, nationality, and sex. Studying the victims is important to determine why they were chosen, and how they were affected. Civil rights have come a long way in the past century, and continue to get better. Child rights groups continue to fight and win wrongful rulings in, so the kids can someday redeem themselves. First of all let’s take a look at what victimology is shall we. Victimology is defined as “the study of crime victims and the psychological effects on being a victim.” (Dictionary, 2013) Let’s take a look at why victimology is so important know a days. Here are some startling numbers from 2010. “The city of Detroit, Michigan literally looks like a war zone and violent crime is thriving. So far this year in Detroit, car thefts are up 83%, robberies are up 50%, burglaries are up 20% and property destruction is up 42%. Lawmakers in Illinois say that violence has become so rampant in Chicago that the National Guard needs to be sent in. In just one night last week seven people were killed and 18 were wounded – mostly by gunfire. In fact, there have already been 113 murders in Chicago this year. There are approximately 12 million crimes committed in the United States every single year. That is by far the worst in the world. No other nation has more than about 6 million reported crimes per year.” (Michael, 2010) With these types of numbers, there...
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