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 A NEWSLETTER OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN JUVENILE LAW AND RESEARCH PROVIDED BY THE NATIONAL JUVENILE JUSTICE PROSECUTION CENTER
Volume I, Issue 2, August 2003
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RECENT CASES
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| MIRANDA/WAIVER/COMPETENCY |
State v. Griffin, (AC 23271, Conn. App. Ct.)—The Connecticut Court of Appeals affirmed a District Court’s exclusion of expert testimony based on the so-called “Grisso Test” for a juvenile’s competency to waive Miranda. The lower court had found that the Grisso Test did not meet the Daubert standard for admissibility of expert testimony because, even though devised in 1981, the test had not been sufficiently subjected to testing and peer review and “had not been generally accepted in the relevant scientific community.” The Appellate Court agreed, holding that the numerous citations to the Grisso Test in law reviews and case law did not meet the Daubert test for acceptance, and that the point of Daubert is “whether Grisso’s peers in his own scientific community have reviewed and have accepted as scientifically valid his test.” The evidence did not meet that standard. (Thanks to Fran Carino, State’s Attorney’s Office, Rocky Hill, Connecticut for referring this case to In Re Express. The case is presently on appeal to the Connecticut Supreme Court.)
http://www.jud.state.ct.us/external/supapp/Cases/AROap/AP77/77ap348.pdf
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SCHOOL DRUG TESTS
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Joye v. Hunterdon Central Bd. of Educ. (A-27-2002, New Jersey)—On a 4-3 vote, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed a high school’s drug-testing policy which randomly tested all students involved in extracurricular activities and all students with a parking permit. Drawing on last fall’s Bd. of Educ. v. Earls U.S. Supreme Court decision, the New Jersey court held that the drug testing policy was reasonable considering the school’s need to maintain order and discipline and the students’ diminished expectations of privacy in the school setting. The Court noted that under the policy no criminal referral would be made for positive tests. The school district had documented a serious drug problem at the school.
http://lawlibrary.rutgers.edu/courts/supreme/a-27-02.opn.html
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BLENDED SENTENCING
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State v. B.Y., 659 N.W.2d 763 (Minn. 2003)—The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s imposition of an adult sentence on a juvenile previously sentenced as an “Extended Jurisdiction Juvenile” under Minnesota’s blended sentencing law. The lower court found that B.Y. had violated a 9:00 p.m. curfew and that no mitigating evidence offset the violation, making imposition of the adult sentence mandatory under the Minnesota statute. The Supreme Court held that the lower court should consider in mitigation the fact that B.Y. had successfully completed much of his probation plan, including a year in rehab; that the curfew was not part of the original disposition but was imposed by the probation officer; and that a “19-year-old violating a 9 p.m. curfew does little to demonstrate that he is not amenable to probation.”
http://www.lawlibrary.state.mn.us/archive/supct/0304/op010897-0424.htm
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SEX OFFENDER REGISTRATION
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In re J.W., 787 N.E.2d 747 (Ill. 2003)—The Illinois Supreme Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the application of the State’s sex offender registration law to a 12-year-old juvenile. The trial court found (and the Supreme Court affirmed) that J.W. was a “sexual predator” as defined in the Illinois law, thereby subjecting him to lifetime registration. The appellant had argued that the statute was unconstitutional because it subjected J.W. to adult punishment for offenses for which he could not be prosecuted as an adult. The Supreme Court disagreed, noting that Illinois’s juvenile justice statutes now incorporate the goals of public protection and offender accountability, in addition to the goal of offender rehabilitation. The Court held the registration act was a reasonable method of protecting the public and holding young offenders, even those too young to be prosecuted as adults, accountable for their conduct.
http://www.state.il.us/court/Opinions/SupremeCourt/2003/February/Opinions/Html/92116.htm. (For a discussion of the balanced justice principles relied upon by the Illinois Supreme Court, see the APRI publication Bringing Balance to Juvenile Justice available at http://www.ndaa-apri.org/apri/index.html)
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Changes to JAIBG Program — The Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grant Program, traditionally an important source of funds for juvenile prosecution programs, is undergoing significant change. Congress and the Department of Justice have voiced concerns regarding the results of the program for some time. Consequently, Congress reconfigured the program in legislation passed late last year, changing the program’s name to Juvenile Accountability Block Grants (JABG). DOJ has now published its proposed changes to the program, requiring states to focus more on court and prosecution programs and changing the reporting requirements of fund recipients. DOJ’s changes are explained in its publication, Changes to OJJDP’s Juvenile Accountability Program, available on-line at http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/200220/contents.html or for download as a PDF file at http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/ojjdp/200220.pdf
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“A Child No More,” The Children’s Beat, Spring 2003 (a quarterly publication of the Casey Journalism Center on Children and Families)—In this article the author treats issues relating to trying and sentencing juvenile offenders in the adult criminal system in a balanced presentation. Some of the material in the article arises out of a juvenile justice conference in which APRI participated, and the article quotes NDAA Board members Denver District Attorney, Bill Ritter, and Dakota (MN) County Attorney, Jim Backstrom.
http://casey.umd.edu/home.nsf (follow the Children’s Beat links).
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Latest Resources From OJJDP. May 2003—This publication provides a comprehensive, easy-to-use guide to information available from the DOJ’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. It includes an overview of the kinds of publications and other information products OJJDP makes available, an annotated listing (arranged by topic) of all publications issued during 2001 and 2002, and a list of all titles published to date in OJJDP's many special bulletin series. It provides brief descriptions of the publications and links to the works in PDF or html formats on the Internet, most available for free.
http://www.ncjrs.org/html/ojjdp/000115/index.html.
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“Activists: Teen crime spike a ‘wake-up call,’” Boston Herald, by Laurel J. Sweet—“Local leaders say a host of societal woes are causing a surge of urban youth violence, including joblessness, drugs, peer pressure, self-esteem issues and a spike in gang activity in Boston, Lawrence, Brockton, Lynn and other cities. ‘Right now, there's (gang recruitment) going on all over Massachusetts and the East Coast, and it has been for at least the last couple years,’ said Rodney Dailey of the anti-violence outreach program Streetpeace.”
http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/local_regional/viol07142003.htm
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Juveniles and Drugs, Office of National Drug Control Policy—The ONDCP has released a Fact Sheet summarizing results of various recent studies of drug use by junior and senior high school age children. The results in general show continuing high levels of drug use among this age group, with only modest declines in some categories over the past few years.
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/juvenile/196879.pdf
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Race as a Factor in Juvenile Arrests, OJJDP Juvenile Justice Bulletin—Researchers analyzed crime incident data compiled by the FBI’s National Incident-Based Reporting System to determine whether there was any disparity in the rates of arrest for violent crimes between white and non-white offenders. The data came from 17 states and involved more than 100,000 offenders. The results of the analysis indicated that there was no significant difference between the races in arrest rates for violent crimes.
http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/ojjdp/189180.pdf
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WEB RESOURCES
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CapitolHearings.org—CapitolHearings.org is a service of C-SPAN that provides live audio coverage of U.S. Senate Committee hearings. The index page shows the schedule of hearings available, and includes links to live streaming audio from the hearing room.
http://www.capitolhearings.org/index.htm
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Daubertontheweb.com—This privately maintained website contains a comprehensive analysis of expert witness issues arising under the Supreme Court’s Daubert and Kumho Tire decisions, along with an extensive list of hundreds of lower court cases discussing admissibility of expert witness testimony.
http://www.daubertontheweb.com/
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 This information is offered for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. This project was supported by Award No. 2002-MU-MU-0003 from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view or opinions expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the United States Department of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the National District Attorneys Association, or the American Prosecutors Research Institute. |
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