Criminal Law

Gone Fishing

Posted on July 28, 2008
After 388 posts in less than 365 days, nearly 40,000 visitors and 191 comments, I have decided to put Juvienation on hiatus until further notice. Please feel free to rummage through the archives, refer to the blogroll and further reading page and use this post as an open thread...

Juvienation on Vacation

Posted on July 06, 2008
I’m off to Italy this afternoon and won’t be posting any updates while I’m traveling. Please feel free to comb through the archives and hit the links on the blogroll while the site is on hiatus. If you’re looking for updates on the OJJDP scandal, the best resource is Youth Today; the good folks at [...

NYT on JJDPA Reauth

Posted on July 03, 2008
An editorial in today’s Times offers strong support for the “comprehensive approach” to juvenile justice reform that informs the Senate’s JJDPA reauthorization bill (background here). “This bill represents an important step toward rational and compassionate justice for troubled children,” the editorial states...

Registering at Blawg.com

Posted on June 27, 2008
Juvienation is now registered in the blawg.com directory, in the “Family Law” subsection of the “Legal Subjects and Areas” section. Lots of good company in there–check it out.

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George Will v. Sentencing Project

Posted on June 27, 2008
Last Sunday George Will, the bowtie-wearing dean of conservative punditry, published an op-ed in the Washington Post called “More Prisons, Less Crime.” In the piece Will gave prominent attention to his colleagues and fellow travelers Heather Macdonald and James Q...

General-Election Obama and the Death Penalty

Posted on June 26, 2008
Why did Barack Obama disagree with the Supreme Court’s decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana? “I have said repeatedly that I think that the death penalty should be applied in very narrow circumstances for the most egregious of crimes,” Obama said at a news conference yesterday in response to the Justices’ 5-4 decision to ban [...

TPM on DOJ Investigation

Posted on June 25, 2008
In today’s episode of TPM TV, Josh Marshall (who won the prestigious Polk award for exposing the US Attorneys scandal) explains why yesterday’s report on illegal hiring practices at the Justice Department, though focusing narrowly on a small part of a wider investigation, should be read as an “ominous sign” for those who were involved [...

Midday Grab Bag

Posted on June 25, 2008
From the Baltimore Sun, news that the Justice Department filed motions yesterday to end federal oversight of two dysfunctional juvenile justice facilities in Maryland. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, an op-ed by Sara Totonchi, public policy director at the Southern Center for Human Rights in Atlanta, on why “Kids Don’t Belong in Adult Court System...

OJJDP Chief of Staff: You?re Fired!

Posted on June 25, 2008
Youth Today’s Patrick Boyle, who broke the story on the scandalous OJJDP grantmaking process, has an update following last week’s oversight committee hearings. OJJDP chief of staff Michele DeKonty, who took the Fifth rather than submit testimony at the hearings (and who apparently didn’t alert her higher-ups about that decision), has been dismissed...

Illegal Hiring at the Justice Department

Posted on June 25, 2008
The Justice Department’s inspector general and the Office of Professional Responsibility released a joint report yesterday investigating allegations of politicized hiring at the DOJ. The report, according to the introduction (a PDF of the whole document is available here), looked into whether “political or ideological affiliations of applicants were improperly considered in the selection [...

Backlash in Kansas?

Posted on June 24, 2008
Judging by these two short pieces–one yesterday, one today–the Kansas Supreme Court’s decision last Friday to extend to juvenile defendants the right to a jury trial has prompted some concerns among legal professionals who fear they’ll need to absorb an increased caseload without being given the necessary resources...

Coming of Age at Guantanamo Bay

Posted on June 24, 2008
As part of an ongoing series of comments from Human Rights Watch staffers on the dark goings-on at Guantánamo Bay, Jo Becker, advocacy director for the Children?s Rights Division at HRW, has filed an impassioned piece for Salon called “The War on Teen Terror...

State Budget Crisis, Cont.

Posted on June 20, 2008
More on the impending state budget crisis: The next fiscal year, which begins July 1, will be “one of the bleakest for state governments in the last three decades,” according to this article in Stateline, citing a new report from the the National Governors Association and National Association of State Budget Officers...

Kansas Supreme Court Grants Juvs Right to Jury

Posted on June 20, 2008
The Kansas Supreme Court ruled 6-1 today to grant all juveniles facing prosecution the right to a jury trial. ?We are undaunted in our belief that juveniles are entitled to the right to a jury trial guaranteed to all citizens under the 6th and 14th Amendments to the United States Constitution,? Justice Eric Rosen wrote...

Investigating Justice

Posted on June 19, 2008
Today’s newspapers may be heading for the great bird cage in the sky by now, but it’s not too late to point out that the Washington Post ran a big piece this morning on investigating the Justice Department’s grantmaking, ahead of Waxman’s hearing...

OJJDP Hearing Update

Posted on June 19, 2008
ABC News, which covered the OJJDP grantmaking scandal in a segment on Nightline last week, has posted an online update about today’s oversight committee hearing. It seems that Henry Waxman isn’t only interested in how OJJDP administrator J...

Senators Introduce JJDPA Bill

Posted on June 19, 2008
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, Republican Senator Arlen Specter and Democratic Senator Herb Kohl, the senior members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, introduced a bill yesterday to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, the key piece of federal legislation guiding juvenile justice funding and management in the states...

House Committee Discussing OJJDP Grants Today

Posted on June 19, 2008
The House Committee on Oversight and Government reform is holding its hearing today, just over a week delayed, to discuss grantmaking procedures at the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. For background on this critical hearing, check previous Juvienation coverage here, here and here, and be sure to visit the Youth Today website here...

NYT Praises Bloomberg for Weekend Processing Move

Posted on June 17, 2008
The New York Times ran an editorial this morning praising Mayor Bloomberg’s recent decision to process juvenile delinquency arrests on weekends. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has set a welcome national example by opening a juvenile court that sits on Saturdays and Sundays and creating procedures that have already begun to cut down on unnecessary detentions while improving [...

JJ Activists March on Maryland

Posted on June 16, 2008
A group of about 120 juvenile reform activists marched from the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center to the Maryland state Department of Juvenile Services headquarters on Saturday. According to the Baltimore Sun, “The march’s organizers, Advocates for Children and Youth, said they want the state to spend money improving community-based services for juvenile delinquents instead [...

WaPo on Kids Count Report

Posted on June 13, 2008
The Washington Post, reporting on the release of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s annual KIDS COUNT report, writes, The nation’s juvenile justice system metes out harsher punishment to black and Latino youths, locks up thousands of children for relatively minor offenses and ultimately makes them more dangerous, according to a national study released yesterday…...

Tennessee Budget Crunch

Posted on June 12, 2008
There’s no doubt that as the economy contracts and the belt tightens on federal grants, states are facing a massive budget crunch. As this recent article in the New York Times pointed out, the crisis hasn’t fully hit yet–in fact, states have “quietly maintained their spending at pre-crisis levels even as they warn of numerous [...

SCOTUS Grants Gitmo Detainees Right to Appeal in US Court

Posted on June 12, 2008
Justice Anthony Kennedy has flexed his muscle as the crucial swing vote on the Supreme Court, ruling with the 5-4 majority to allow foreign detainees at Guantanamo the constitutional right to challenge their detention in US court. From the AP: The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under [...

Kids Count Data Book, Essay Released

Posted on June 12, 2008
From the Campaign for Youth Justice: Today, The Annie E. Casey Foundation released its 2008 KIDS COUNT Data Book essay, “A Road Map for Juvenile Justice Reform.” The essay looks at the nearly 100,000 children confined to juvenile facilities on any given night in the United States and what can be done to reduce unnecessary [...

Herbert on Jobless Youth

Posted on June 10, 2008
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert on the 4 million “disconnected youth” in America: “These are the teenagers and young adults ? roughly 16 to 24 years old ? who are not in school and basically have no hope of finding work. The bureaucrats compiling the official unemployment rate don?t even bother counting these young [...

Flores in the Spotlight

Posted on June 10, 2008
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention administrator J. Robert Flores didn’t look very comfortable in the spotlight on ABC’s Nightline last night. Which is understandable, considering investigative correspondent Brian Ross tracked him down on the sidewalk, after Flores denied several interview requests, and put a microphone in Flores’s face, asking him why he saw [...

Weekend Processing for NYC Juv Arrests

Posted on June 09, 2008
Thanks to a recent decision by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York City has become the first jurisdiction in the state that can process juvenile delinquency arrests on weekends. Until May 31, processing in Family Court was available only on weekdays; a teen brought in on Friday night would be held until Monday morning, regardless of [...

FBI: Violent Crime Down

Posted on June 09, 2008
Reuters: “U.S. violent crimes like murders and rapes decreased by 1.4 percent in 2007 after two years of increases that caused concern among criminal justice experts, the FBI reported on Monday.”

House Committee, ABC Nightline, to Discuss OJJDP Grants

Posted on June 09, 2008
The House Committee on Government Oversight, headed by good-government top cop Henry Waxman, will hold a hearing tomorrow morning to discuss the grantmaking process at the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). The hearing was prompted by the top-notch reporting of Youth Today editor Patrick Boyle, who deserves a great deal of [...

Lithwick on ?Dual Nature? of US Teens

Posted on June 07, 2008
One of the country’s best legal journalists, Dahlia Lithwick, has written a great, all too short, piece in Slate (cross-published in this week’s issue of Newsweek) on the parallels between two of the most pressing juvenile cases in today’s headlines: the removal of children by the Texas Child Protective Services from the Yearning for Zion [...

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