Category Archives: juvenile crime
New York’s Raise the Age Law Has Transformed How Juvenile Crimes Are Treated, Especially in Brooklyn
According to statistics recently compiled and published by the state of New York, the state’s 2018 “Raise the Age” law that moves a number of 16-year-old juveniles accused of crimes out of Criminal Court has been done more successfully in Brooklyn than anywhere else in the city. The law was designed to end the… Read More »
A Close Look At The Issue Of False Confessions
Every day, defendants plead guilty to crimes they did not commit; all over the country. This is often done in order to “get a deal”; public defenders making deals with prosecutors and their clients for lighter sentences or some other form of consideration. Thinking about how many of these could involve untrue confessions is… Read More »
Lawsuit Challenges Holding Juveniles In Adult Facilities
A federal lawsuit has been filed on behalf of four juveniles who are being charged as adults, with the defendants arguing that housing juveniles in adult detention violates their constitutional rights, including their right to equal protection under the law. The lawsuit is unique in that the county recently requested a report regarding the… Read More »
Juveniles Abandoned In Our Criminal Justice System
While many realize that it can be challenging for those without the resources to obtain justice in the criminal system in our country, most likely do not know that it is an even bigger challenge for our country’s juveniles, specifically, as, according to a new analysis, they are largely left to navigate the legal… Read More »
When Children Are Tried As Adults
Many people remember hearing about the terrible Slender Man stabbing incident in 2014, when two 12-year-old girls allegedly lured their friend into the woods and stabbed her 19 times, purportedly out of a belief that a fictional character known as the “Slender Man” made them do it. Both of the girls accused of the… Read More »
Juvenile Defendants Still Denied Right to Counsel
December 2016 marked a seminal anniversary, whereby, fifty years ago, our U.S. Supreme Court enshrined a juvenile’s right to counsel; a right that is still overlooked in our justice system. Today, we still fail to provide many teenagers on trial with competent (or any) counsel in many instances, even though the right to effective… Read More »
When are Teens Tried as Adults in New York?
Jean Sanchez was 13 years old when killed another 13-year-old boy in May of 2014. His defense team argued that refusing to hear Sanchez’s case as a juvenile was a violation of his constitutional due process rights. The judge, however, refused this argument and ordered Sanchez to be tried in adult court. Although studies… Read More »
A Felony for Fun: When Your Fake ID Has Real Consequences
Fake IDs are something that many teens and underage adults are very familiar with. If a person does not own a fake ID, then they usually know at least one person with a fake ID, or they know how they can go about getting one. For the most part individuals shy away from obtaining… Read More »
Juvenile Delinquency Transfers to Adult Court
In a prior article, an overview of the juvenile delinquency system was provided as well as the benefit to proceeding under the New Jersey Code of Juvenile Justice as opposed to the New Jersey Penal Code , which governs crimes within the state. However, not all juvenile cases proceed through the juvenile delinquency system…. Read More »
