The Juvenile Brain and Criminal Culpability

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, juveniles are different than adults when it comes to criminal culpability. This has ramifications at sentencing. For example, sentencing a person to death for a capital offense violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment if the person was younger than 18 years old at the time of the offense. But why are juveniles different? That is the topic of this episode. 

Robert is joined by Dr. Robert Kinscherff, executive director of the Center for Law, Brain, and Behavior at Massachusetts General Hospital, and Judge Jay Blitzman, law professor and interim executive director of the Massachusetts Advocates for Children. They discuss the juvenile brain, juvenile culpability, and the recent tragedy involving the 6-year-old boy who shot his teacher, Abigail Zwerner.

Resources:

White Paper on the Science of Late Adolescence: A Guide for Judges, Attorneys, and Policy Makers.

Cases discussed:

• Roper v. Simmons, (2005) (sentencing a person to death for a capital offense violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment if the person was younger than 18 years old at the time of the offense).
• Graham v. Florida, (2010) (sentencing an individual to life imprisonment without parole for a non-homicide crime committed before the defendant reached the age of 18 violates the Eighth Amendment).
• Miller v. Alabama, (2012) (sentencing to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole for juvenile homicide offenders violates the Eighth Amendment).
• Montgomery v. Louisiana, (2016) (Miller applies retroactively).
• Jones v. Mississippi, (2021) (sentencing judge is not required the sentencer to make a separate factual finding of permanent incorrigibility before sentencing the defendant to life without parole in capital case).

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