About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

86 Tul. L. Rev. 309 (2011-2012)

handle is hein.journals/tulr86 and id is 313 raw text is: Juvenile Criminal Responsibility: Can Malice Supply the Want of Years? Craig S. Lerner* Can the young be held accountable for their crhnes? At common law, juveniles were entitled to a presumption ofincapacity but were subject to criminal liability on an individualized basis: demonstrated mahce supplied the want ofyears. In Graham v. Florida, the United States Supreme Court rejected this pnciple and held that juvemles categoncally could not be sentenced to life without parle for crines other than homicide. This Article argues that embedded in the Courth holdng is a simplifyig assumption about the relative maturity of juveniles and adults and a moral claim about the culpability ofhomicides and nonbomicides- both this assumption and this claim are demonstrably false in a nontrivial number ofcases. This Article focuses on the facts of some of these cases. One cannot assess the culpability of particular defendants unless one considers, without artfil euphemisms or convenient elisions, what they did And what certam crimes reveal is that there a violent juvemle offenders-fortunately rare-who are at least as mature and culpable as the typical adult violent offender TheArticle also considers lower court applications of Graham andfimds, in many instances, marked skepticism. The Supreme Courts general theory of juvende umatunty has failed to mpwrss judges confronting particular cases. The Courth central claim about the relative culpability ofadult andjuveme offenders ongnates from a failue to conivnt inconvenient facts and a belief that human natur is sufficiently captured by the three standard deviations that surround one & own experience m the world Lower courtjudges have access to a wider data set hreaching contrary conclusions. I. INTRODUCTION...........................................310 II. PUNISHING JUVENILE CRIMINALS: A SHORT INTRODUCTION. ................................ .....315 A. The Common Law.: 'Malice Supplies the Want of Years ................... .......... ..... 316 B. Toward a Categorical Eighth Amendment Juisprudence. ............................ 322 C Graham v. Florida. .................... .....328 1. Community Consensus ....... .............328 2. The Criminal .................... .....330 3. The Crime ...................... .....332 4. The Punishment .................. .....334 5. A Categorical Rule ........ ..... ........335 III. TRUE CRIME LESSONS ....................................337 * 0 2011 Craig S. Lerner. Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor of Law, George Mason University School of Law. The author thanks Lloyd Cohen, Renee Lerner, Daniel Polsby, Nancy Tardy, and Joshua Wright for helpful comments. The author can be reached at clemer@gmu.edu. 309

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most