The Article establishes that the juvenile court’s traditional focus on the needs of destitute youth continues to be reflected in the system's practices and procedures, despite the modern court’s shift in dispositional philosophy from rehabilitation to youth accountability and public safety. It argues that this emphasis on families’ needs when adjudicating delinquency has a disproportionate effect on low-income children, resulting in high rates of recidivism and perpetuating negative stereotypes based on class. It offers strategies for confronting and reversing this trend, including data collection that records the income-level of juveniles’ parents; initiatives that raise awareness of needs-based delinquency among police, prosecutors, defenders, judges, and agency personnel; diversion programs that reduce the high rate of juvenile court adjudications for minor offenses; cross-agency mental health treatment plans for children and adolescents; and the adoption of international juvenile justice models that are preventative and diversionary rather than penal and punitive. The Article challenges the view that in tight budgetary times, court involvement is the only way for poor children to access services. It concludes by calling for lawmakers and system players to end the practice of needs-based delinquency, with the goal of increasing fairness for all youth in the juvenile justice system.

For more than sixty years after the founding of the first juvenile court in 1899, its philosophy and guiding principle were based on the rehabilitative ideal. This model rejected the traditional adversary system found in criminal court proceedings in favor of informal procedures, indeterminate sanctions, judicial discretion, and individualization. The 1967 Supreme Court case of In re Gault struck at the core assumptions of this paradigm with its emphasis on the functional similarity between juvenile and adult criminal court and extension of key due process protections to youth charged in delinquency court, including the right to counsel and the privilege against self-incrimination. As revolutionary as the Gault decision was, however, its holding failed to translate into long-term sustainable reform—the result, at least in part, of the absence of the requisite factors articulated by Professor Rosenberg. Whether the recent Supreme Court cases of Roper v. Simmons, Graham v. Florida, J.D.B. v. North Carolina, and their progeny will facilitate such reform remains an open question.

This Article, written for a symposium at Brooklyn Law School on “Adolescents in Society: Their Evolving Legal Status,” explores the potential for twenty-first century Supreme Court decisions implicating juveniles’ constitutional rights to transform the way in which the courts process and punish young offenders. It discusses the method and means by which institutional reform litigation brings about change and the structural challenges that arise when courts attempt to transform complex institutions. It provides a brief review of Supreme Court decisions prior to Brown that served to prevent rather than enable social change in the areas of slavery, racial segregation, and workers’ rights; it contrasts these cases with the decision and impact of Brown. It argues that although In re Gault was a foundational legal holding, it did not translate into effective policy due in part to local officials’ failure to implement the decision as expected and lawmakers’ inability to enact legislation that was true to the spirit of Gault. The Article argues that based on the analysis developed by Professor Rosenberg and other scholars, recent Supreme Court decisions ending the juvenile death penalty and juvenile life without parole sentences for non-homicides, and holding that a child's age properly informs the Miranda custody analysis, could lead to significant change in both the juvenile and criminal justice systems for young offenders. It acknowledges the limitations to this theory and the challenges that are likely to arise, and concludes that although courts can reform complex institutions, constitutional litigation is an unreliable path to social change.

This Article critically examines the prevalence of laws allowing for the criminal prosecution of minors for prostitution. It argues that rather than maintain a legal scheme that characterizes and treats such juveniles as willing participants who, if harmed, are merely getting what they deserve, a more nuanced approach must be developed in which—at a minimum— criminal liability should be consistent with age of consent and statutory rape laws. It analyzes the range of ways in which states have addressed the problem of prostituted children, and it highlights those few that have successfully utilized strategies of intervention and rehabilitation rather than prosecution and incarceration. It contrasts the impact of state versus federal legislation as well as domestic versus international policy in this area and the ways in which these differences serve to perpetuate pernicious stereotypes vis-à-vis youth and crime. The Article addresses the historical treatment of prostituted children as criminals rather than victims by both American law and society, and critiques contemporary rationales for continuing a punitive approach toward these youth. The Article explores the conflicting statutory, common law, and colloquial meanings of the terms “prostitution,” “consent,” and “bodily autonomy” as they relate to children and sexuality. It also considers the extent to which the criminal offenses of prostitution and statutory rape address different sets of harms and explores how gender and sexual orientation are implicated in the discussion. The Article concludes by highlighting model programs directed at prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation as well as proposing strategies for reform, such as decriminalization and diversion.

This Article examines the phenomenon that results when criminal defense culture, juvenile court culture, and the culture of the family intersect. It argues that when the defense attorney is caught in the middle of these competing norms, accurate fact-finding ceases to be a priority, the quality of advocacy falters, and a whole host of harms result—from the stigma of being labeled a juvenile delinquent to the trauma of institutionalization and commitment to the direct and collateral consequences of wrongful convictions. The Article proposes that law schools, state bar associations, and public defender agencies import the pioneering work of Sue Bryant and Jean Koh Peters on the five practices—or habits—of cross-cultural lawyering to juvenile court, thereby helping to ensure that defense attorneys are equipped with the tools necessary to practice law based on facts rather than assumptions. It emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the challenging nature of the problem and offers strategies for training juvenile defenders as well as for taking proactive steps to change the culture of juvenile court.

This Article critically examines the ways in which courts have determined whether juveniles should be granted certain procedural rights, and it argues that rather than subscribe to the wooden concept of quid pro quo or utilize a completely subjective balancing approach, courts should allow social science research related to adolescents and conceptions of procedural justice to inform the decision. It analyzes United States Supreme Court case law that has addressed this issue and discusses a recent Kansas Supreme Court case that rejects precedent but fails to shift the juvenile justice paradigm. It then examines empirical studies in the area of procedural justice theory, exploring how children and adolescents develop ties to the law and legal actors and demonstrating a causal relationship between juveniles’ perceptions of fairness and their likelihood of reoffending. It argues that social science research provides a useful lens through which to analyze whether specific procedural rights should be granted to juveniles. This Article begins the task of applying procedural justice theory in the context of delinquency court, examining for the first time how the theory could frame the debate over whether juveniles have a constitutional right to a jury trial as well as other procedural protections. It concludes by acknowledging the limits of procedural justice theory as applied to juveniles, and it raises questions and offers caveats for moving ahead.

After Anne Sexton's death, Linda Gray Sexton created an inventory of her mother's papers and transferred their ownership to an archive at the University of Texas. She placed the four tapes and the notebooks in which the poet wrote down her thoughts and reflections of the therapy sessions in a restricted part of the archive. When Linda Gray Sexton asked Diane Wood Middlebrook in 1980 to become her mother's biographer, she agreed to give Middlebrook full access to her mother's estate, including the four tapes and the therapy notebooks. She also authorized Middlebrook to consult with Dr. Orne. In 1986, after Dr. Orne told Linda Gray Sexton that he still possessed the remaining therapy tapes, he made them available to Middlebrook. While Dr. Orne did not explicitly request Linda Gray Sexton's permission to disclose the tapes to Middlebrook, he knew that Sexton had veto power over anything in the biography that she found objectionable to the family. He also had received legal advice to the effect that in most jurisdictions a literary executor could get a court order requiring the release of medical records. In addition, Dr. Orne knew that Middlebrook had already obtained the most sensitive material involving Sexton's life and psychiatric treatment from the therapy notebooks and other biographical sources. Before releasing the tapes, Dr. Orne discussed at length with Middlebrook the issues raised in the manuscript of the biography, and was convinced that nothing "new" in terms of salient biographical information would be gleaned from the tapes. As a biographer, Middlebrook felt that the process of listening to the tapes would provide her with insight into Sexton that she could not gain through any other medium.

The psychiatric and the literary communities' response to the publication of Middlebrook's biography in July, 1991, was immediate, impassioned, and well-publicized. Some claimed that by releasing the tapes to the public, Dr. Orne breached "the contract of confidentiality that always exists between psychotherapist and patient" and that his action betrayed the profession. Others, in contrast, felt that the decision to disclose is the patient's - or the executor's - and that the issue is one of "public taste and public opinion." Sexton's close friends and colleagues defended the act of disclosure, while her extended family condemned it.

This Essay addresses the issues raised by the release of Anne Sexton's therapy tapes. First, it considers the interrelationships among Sexton's poetry, her psychotherapy, and her identity as a woman. Second, this Essay places the tapes within the legal doctrine of surrogate decision-making. Related to this inquiry is a discussion of doctor-patient confidentiality and the psychobiography of artists. Throughout, the Essay explores difficult questions about the nature of privacy and autonomy and the impact of gender upon these concepts. In addition, a contextualized, fact-specific analysis is emphasized, one that draws upon - rather than minimizes - the paradox, tensions, and ambiguities expressed by the debate itself.

This Article argues that implicit bias—seeing the type or category of the person instead of the three-dimensional reality—relates not only to how capital jurors perceive juvenile offenders but also to how law enforcement views the juvenile suspect. It explains how Simmons can inform a new approach by both law enforcement and the courts to the questioning of juvenile suspects, one that is consistent with what recent studies have revealed about the ways in which adolescents experience interrogation and is also consistent with the law’s approach to the questioning of minors who are witnesses or alleged victims of crime. It argues that the principal bases of Simmons be applied to the area of juvenile interrogation, and it proposes changing the culture behind the questioning of adolescents with reforms and strategies for legislators and judges as well as for police officers and community groups.

This Article examines the repeated attempts by advocates and lawmakers to raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction in North Carolina. Grounded in primary source materials and legislative records, the Article demonstrates that there has been a recurring pattern over the past century: despite the backing of scholars, child welfare experts, and prominent legislators, proposals to extend jurisdiction from age sixteen to ages seventeen or eighteen have been consistently defeated. Although the precise reasons for North Carolina's refusal to join the majority are difficult, if not impossible, to identify, this Article suggests several likely causes: the self-perpetuating claim by opponents of raising the age that an already-underfunded system should not be expanded; the enduring power of the specter of youth violence; and the continued reluctance of the bench and bar to view juvenile court as a critical forum requiring specialization and commitment from its participants, rather than a mere training ground for inexperienced judges and lawyers. Finally, the Article argues that an appreciation and understanding of the historical context should cause lawmakers to revisit the issue with a greater sense of urgency, providing them with the momentum needed to break with the status quo and to raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction in North Carolina.