Waging the Battle for Society’s Soul: The Constitutionality of Juvenile Transfer Legislation in the Wake of Jones v. Mississippi

By LOGAN KNUTSON. Full Text.

Trying juvenile defendants as adults is a cruel, yet enduring practice in U.S. criminal law. If convicted, these youthful offenders face brutal conditions in adult prison and a lifelong stigma. Although these devastating consequences of conviction are readily apparent, juvenile transfer is insidious even absent a prison sentence or criminal record.

State-level legislation that mandates or creates a presumption for subjecting juveniles to any degree of proceedings in adult court disregards their unique capacity for rehabilitation—a characteristic of youth that both modern neuroscience and the U.S. Supreme Court have recognized for decades. In the context of sentencing juveniles to life without parole, the Court has acknowledged that the Constitution affords additional protection to children. Accordingly, with few exceptions, this type of sentence violates the Eighth Amendment. But the preclusion of disproportionately harsh punishment for children should not—and cannot—be confined to this one area of criminal law.

Instead, this Note promotes an expansive application of the constitutional prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment with respect to juvenile defendants. Guided by the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence regarding juvenile life without parole, this Note offers a lens to identify the more subtle dangers of transfer legislation that fails to account for the difference between children and adults.