Miller v. Alabama Brief of Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners

    Nos. 10-9646 & 10-9647

In The

mpreme Court of tfje Imteti S tates

EVAN M il l e r , Petitioner,
V.

Alabama, Respondent.

KUNTRELL Ja c k s o n , Petitioner,
V.

RAY H o b b s , Director,
Arkansas Department of Correction, Respondent.

On Writ of Certiorari to the 
Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals 
and the Supreme Court of Arkansas

BRIEF OF AMICI CURIAE 
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATIONAL FUND, 
INC., CHARLES HAMILTON HOUSTON INSTITUTE 

FOR RACE AND JUSTICE, LATINO JUSTICE 
PRLDEF, ASIAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE AND 

EDUCATION FUND AND LEADERSHIP 
CONFERENCE ON CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS 

IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS

John Payton
Director- Counsel

Debo P. Adegbile 
Christina A. Swarns 
Jin Hee Lee

Vincent M. Southerland 
Counsel of Record 

NAACP Legal Defense 
& Educational Fund, Inc. 

99 Hudson Street, 16th Floor 
New York, NY 10013 
(212) 965-2200 
vsoutherland@naacpldf.org

mailto:vsoutherland@naacpldf.org


1

CORPORATE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

Pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 29.6, amici 
curiae NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, 
Inc., Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race 
and Justice, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, Asian 
American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and 
Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights 
certify that each is a non-profit corporation with no 
parent companies, subsidiaries, or affiliates that 
have issued shares to the public.



TABLE OF CONTENTS

CORPORATE DISCLOSURE STATEMENT........... i
TABLE OF CONTENTS............................................. ii
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES......................................iii
STATEMENT OF INTEREST.................................... 1
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT.................................... 1
ARGUMENT................................................................. 2
I. The Eighth Amendment Demands Fair

Evaluation of Culpability..................................... 2
II. Race Undermines the Evaluation of 

Culpability in the Sentencing of Children
to Life Without Parole.......................................... 4
A. Race Influenced the Implementation 

of Laws Allowing Children to be 
Sentenced to Life Without Parole............... 5
1. The Media..............................................10
2. The Academics...................................... 14
3. The Legislators.....................................21

III. Consistent with Their History, Juvenile 
Life Without Parole Laws Are 
Overwhelmingly Imposed Upon Children
of Color.................................................................. 26

IV. Proper Evaluation of Culpability Has Been
Undermined by the Racially Charged 
Criminalization of Youth of Color.....................30

CONCLUSION............................................................35
ADDENDUM............................................................... la

ii



I l l

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002)...................3
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986)...................4
City of Memphis v. Greene, 451 U.S. 100 

(1981)..........................................................................9
Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 (1977)...................... 3
Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 (1982).......... 31
Enmund u. Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982)................. 2
Graham v. Florida, 130 S. Ct. 2011 (2010)

........................................................................2, 31, 33
Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954)................. 4
Hill v. Texas, 316 U.S. 400 (1942).............................4
In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1 (1967)................................ 6, 7
J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 564 U.S. __, 131 S.

Ct. 2394 (2011)................................................... 3, 31
Kennedy v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008).............2
Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966)..........6, 7
McKiever u. Pennslyvania, 403 U.S. 528 

(1971)..................................................................... 6, 7
Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005).............3, 31
Rose v. Mitchell, 443 U.S. 545 (1979)........................4
Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815 (1988)....... 31
Tison v. Arizona, 481 U.S. 137 (1987)...................... 3
Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28 (1986).................. 4, 5



XV

Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 U.S. 254 (1986)................... 4
Whitus v. Georgia, 385 U.S. 545 (1967)....................4

Statutes and Congressional Materials

S. 1425, The Violent and Hard-Core Juvenile 
Offender Reform Act, Opening Statement of 
Sen. John Ashcroft before the Subcomm. on 
Youth Violence of the S. Comm, on the 
Judiciary (May 9, 1996).........................................23

H.R. 3565, The Violent Youth Predator Act of 
1996, Statement of Rep. William McCollum 
before the Subcomm. on Crime of the H. 
Comm, on the Judiciary (June 27, 1996)............23

Other Authorities

Michele Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass 
Incarceration In the Age of Colorblindness 
(2010)........................................................................9

Amnesty Int’l & Human Rights Watch, The 
Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole for 
Child Offenders in the United States 
(2005), available at http://www.hrw.ox-g 
/sites/default/files/reports/TheRestofTheirLi 
ves.pdf................................ ...............................27, 29

Peter Annin, ‘Superpredators’ Arrive, News­
week, Jan. 22, 1996...............................................14

Sara Sun Beale, You’ve Come a Long Way,
Baby: Two Waves of Juvenile Justice
Reforms as Seen from Jena, Louisiana, 44 
Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 511 (2009)...........8, 22, 24

http://www.hrw.ox-g


V

Sarah Sun Beale, The News Media’s Influence 
on Criminal Justice Policy: How Market- 
Driven News Promotes Punitiveness, 48 
Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 397 (2006)...........................10

Elizabeth Becker, As Ex-Theorist on Young 
‘Superpredators, ’ Bush Aide Has Regrets,
N.Y. Times, Feb. 9, 2001....................................... 20

William Bennett et. al., Body Count: Moral 
Poverty . . . And How to Win America’s War 
Against Crime and Drugs (1996)..........................16

Linda S. Beres & Thomas D. Griffith, 
Demonizing Youth, 34 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 747 
(2001).........................................................................25

George S. Bridges & Sara Steen, Racial 
Disparities in Official Assessments in 
Juvenile Offenders: Attributional Stereo­
types as Mediating Mechanisms, 63 Am.
Soc. Rev. 554 (1998)........................................ 10, 33

Elizabeth Brown, Crime, Governance, and 
Knowledge Production: The “Two Track 
Common-Sense Approach” to Juvenile 
Criminality in the United States, 36 Soc.
Just. 102 (2009), available at 2009 WLNR 
25016000 (Jan. 1, 2009)........................................ 26

Beth Caldwell & Ellen C. Caldwell,
“Superpredators” and “Animals” -  Images 
and California’s “Get Tough on Crime” 
Initiatives, 2011 J. Inst. Just. Int’l Stud. 61 
(2011) ........................................................................11, 20



VI

Alexia Cooper & Erica L. Smith, U.S. Dep’t of 
Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 
Homicide Trends in the United States, 
1980-2008 (Nov. 2011), available at 
http: //b j s. oj p. u s doj. go v/content/pub/p df/htu s 
8008.pdf....................................................................8

Connie de la Vega & Michelle Leighton, 
Sentencing Our Children To Die in Prison: 
Global Law and Practice, 42 U.S.F.L. Rev.
983 (2008)................................................................ 27

John J. Dilulio, Jr., My Black Crime Problem, 
and Ours: Why Are So Many Blacks In 
Prison? Is the Criminal Justice System 
Racist? The Answer is Disquieting., City 
Journal, Spring 1996, available at 
http ://ww w. city-j ournal. org/printable ,php?id 
=62......................................................................17, 18

John J. Dilulio, Jr., The Coming of the Super- 
Predators, The Weekly Standard, Nov. 27,
1995, available at http://cooley. 
libarts.wsu.edu/schwartj/criminology/dilulio 
.pdf.........................................................16, 17, 19, 22

Lori Dorfman & Vincent Schiraldi, Building 
Blocks for Youth, Off Balance: Youth Race 
& Crime in the News (2001), available at
http ://w ww. cclp.org/documents/BBY/offb ala 
nee.pdf......................................................................12

Dole Seeks to Get Tough on Young Criminals,
L.A. Times, July 7, 1996........................................23

N. Jeremi Duru, The Central Park Five, the 
Scottsboro Boys, and the Myth of the Bestial 
Black Man, 25 Cardozo L. Rev. 1315 (2004)..... 13

http://cooley


Editorial, Children’s Court: Back to the 
Future, Chi. Trib., July 25, 1999.........................21

Barry C. Feld, The Honest Politician’s Guide 
to Juvenile Justice in the Twenty-First 
Century, 564 Annals Am. Acad. Pol. & Soc.
Sci. 10 (1999)............................................................. 6

Barry C. Feld, Race, Politics, and Juvenile 
Justice: The Warren Court and the
Conservative “Backlash,” 87 Minn. L. Rev.
1447 (2003)........................................................6, 8, 9

Barry C. Feld, Unmitigated Punishment: 
Adolescent Criminal Responsibility and 
LWOP Sentences, 10 J.L. & Fam. Stud. 11 
(2007)............................................................. 8, 27, 29

vii

James Alan Fox, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Bureau 
of Justice Statistics, Trends In Juvenile 
Violence: A Report to the United States 
Attorney General on Current and Future 
Rates of Juvenile Offending (1996)........................19

Maggie Gallagher, Juvenile Crime Wave is 
Just Beginning, Long Beach Press- 
Telegraph, May 20, 1996....................................... 15

David Gergen, Editorial, Taming Teenage 
Wolf Packs, U.S. News & World Rep.,
Mar. 25, 1996...........................................................14

Sandra Graham & Brian S. Lowery, Priming 
Unconscious Racial Stereotypes About 
Adolescent Offenders, 28 L. Hum. Behav.
483 (2004).................................................................32

Ernestine S. Gray, The Media -  Don’t Believe 
the Hype, 14 Stan. L. & Pol’y Rev. 45 (2003)..... 10



V l l l

Human Rights Watch, The Rest of Their 
Lives: Life without Parole for Youth
Offenders in the United States in 2008 (May
2008), available at http://www.hrw.org/sites 
/default/file s/rep ort s/the_r est_of_their_live s 
_execsum_table.pdf................................................. 29

Earle Ofari Hutchinson, Teen Crisis Not All 
Bad News, Chi. Trib., Aug. 14, 1997 ..................24

Jerry Kang, Trojan Horses of Race, 118 Harv.
L. Rev. 1489 (2005)................................................. 11

Joseph Margulies, Deviance, Risk, and Law: 
Reflections on the Demand for the 
Preventive Detention of Suspected 
Terrorists, 101 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 
729 (2011)................................................................ 20

Gary Marx, Young Killers Remain Well- 
Publicized Rarity: “Superpredators” Fail To 
Grow Into Forecast Proportions, Chi. Trib.,
Feb. 11, 1998........................................................... 20

Perry L. Moriearty, Framing Justice: Media,
Bias and Legal Decisionmaking, 69 Md. L.
Rev. 849 (2011)......................................7, 12, 13, 14

Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, Should 13-Year- 
olds Who Commit Crimes with Firearms Be 
Tried as Adults? Yes: Send a Message to 
Young Criminals, 80 A.B.A. J. 46 
(Mar. 1994).............................................................. 24

David B. Mustard, Racial, Ethnic, and Gender 
Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence from
the U.S. Federal Courts, 44 J.L. & Econ.
285 (2001) 29



IX

Nat’l Council on Crime & Delinquency, And 
Justice for Some: Differential Treatment of 
Youth of Color in the Justice System 
(Jan. 2007), available at http://www.nccd- 
crc.org/nccd/pub s/200 7j an_j u stice_for_some. 
pdf................................................................ 28, 29, 31

Michele Benedetto Neitz, A Unique Bench, a 
Common Code: Evaluating Judicial Ethics 
in Juvenile Court, 24 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 
97 (2011).................................................................... 7

Kenneth B. Nunn, The Child as Other: Race 
and Differential Treatment in the Juvenile 
Justice System, 51 DePaul L. Rev. 679 
(2002)............................................... .....10, 15, 22, 32

Office of the Surgeon Gen., Youth Violence: A 
Report of the Surgeon General (2001), 
available at http://www.surgeongeneral.gov 
/library/youthviolence/toc.html...............19, 20, 21

Jonathan Peterson, Gangs, Youth Crimes 
Target of Major Effort: Clinton Says
Juveniles Top Enforcement Priority, Contra 
Costa Times, Feb. 20, 1997.................................. 24

David E. Pitt, Jogger’s Attackers Terrorized at 
Least 9 in 2 Hours, N.Y. Times, Apr. 22,
1989................................................................... ......13

Charles Puzzanchera & Benjamin Adams,
U.S. DepT of Justice, Office of Juvenile 
Justice & Delinquency Prevention, Juvenile 
Arrests 2009, Juvenile Offenders and 
Victims: National Report Series, Dec. 2011, 
available at www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/236477. 
p d f ..................................................................... 27, 30

http://www.nccd-crc.org/nccd/pub
http://www.nccd-crc.org/nccd/pub
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov
http://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/236477


X

Mary Romero, State Violence, and the Social 
and Legal Construction of Latino 
Criminality: From El Bandido to Gang 
Member, 78 Denv. U. L. Rev. 1081 (2001)..........15

Jane Rutherford, Juvenile Justice Caught 
Between the Exorcist and a Clockwork 
Orange, 51 DePaul L. Rev. 715 
(2002).......................................................8, 11, 18, 25

Susan Saulny, Convictions and Charges 
Voided In ’89 Central Park Jogger Attack,
N.Y. Times, Dec. 20, 2002..................................... 13

Elizabeth Scott & Laurence Steinberg, Social 
Welfare and Fairness in Juvenile Crime 
Regulation, 71 La. L. Rev. 35 (2010)................. 25

Robert E. Shepard, How the Media 
Misrepresents Juvenile Policies, 12 Crim.
Just. 37 (1998)..................... ........................... 11, 12

Howard N. Snyder & Melissa Sickmund, U.S.
Dep’t of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice & 
Delinquency Prevention, Juvenile Offenders 
and Victims: 2006 National Report (Mar. 
2006), available at http://www.ojjdp.gov/ 
publications/pubabstract.asp?pubi=234394...... 28

John F. Stinneford, Evolving Away from 
Evolving Standards of Decency, 23 Fed. 
Sent’g. Rep. 87 (2010).............................................24

Patricia Torbet, et al., U.S. Dep’t of Justice,
Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency 
Prevention, State Responses to Serious 
and Violent Juvenile Crime (1996), 
available at http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/ 
statresp.pdf.......................................................8, 25

http://www.ojjdp.gov/
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/


XI

Michael Welch et al., Moral Panic Over Youth 
Violence: Wilding and the Manufacture of 
Menace in the Media, 34 Youth & Soc’y 3 
(2002)...........................................................14, 15, 22

David Westphal, Predicted, Teenage Crime 
Wave Failed to Occur, Numbers Show, 
Fresno Bee, Dec. 13, 1999..................................... 21

Craig Wolf, Youths Rape and Beat Central 
Park Jogger, N.Y. Times, Apr. 21, 1989.............12

Franklin E. Zimring, The 1990s Assault on 
Juvenile Justice: Notes from and Ideological 
Battleground, 11 Fed. Sent’g Rep. 260 
(1999)...........................................................................7

Franklin E. Zimring, The Youth Violence 
Epidemic: Myth or Reality, 33 Wake Forest 
L. Rev. 727 (1998)..........................................8, 9, 21

Richard Zoglin, Now For the Bad News: A 
Teenage Time Bomb, Time, Jan. 15, 1996...........15



1

STATEMENT OF INTEREST1

Amici curiae NAACP Legal Defense and 
Educational Fund, Inc., Charles Hamilton Houston 
Institute for Race and Justice, LatinoJustice 
PRLDEF, Asian American Legal Defense and 
Education Fund, and Leadership Conference on Civil 
and Human Rights are non-profit organizations 
dedicated to, among other goals, eradicating the 
impact of race in the administration of justice. More 
details about individual amici are included in the 
Addendum.

SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT

The question presented by these cases is whether 
the imposition of a life without parole sentence on a 
fourteen-year-old child convicted of a homicide 
offense violates the Eighth and Fourteenth 
Amendments’ prohibition against cruel and unusual 
punishments. As detailed by the submissions of the 
Petitioners and their amici curiae, the answer is 
“yes.” As this amicus brief explains, the improper 
influence of race impairs the culpability analyses of 
children subject to life without parole sentences, 
which is further evidence of the unconstitutionality 
of this sentencing practice. Although a proper 
evaluation of culpability is fundamental under the 
Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, history shows

1 Letters of consent by the parties to the filing of this brief 
have been lodged with the Clerk of this Court. Pursuant to 
S. Ct. Rule 37.6, counsel for the amici curiae states that no 
counsel for a party authored this brief in whole or in part, and 
that no person other than the amici, their members, or their 
counsel made a monetary contribution to the preparation or 
submission of this brief.



2

that racial stereotypes propelled the implementation 
of the laws that led to juvenile life without parole 
sentences, and research establishes that children of 
color are sentenced to life without parole at 
markedly disproportionate rates. This Court
declared, in Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. ___, 130
S. Ct. 2011 (2010), that youth are less culpable than 
adults and, therefore, less deserving of life without 
parole sentences. Yet, it is clear that race critically 
and inappropriately influences the assessment of 
blameworthiness in the context of juvenile life 
without parole sentencing. Given this constitutional 
infirmity, as well as the severity and finality of a 
death-in-prison sentence, this Court should 
categorically exempt youth from life without parole 
sentences.

ARGUMENT

I. The Eighth Amendment Demands Fair 
Evaluation of Culpability.

In Graham, this Court held that children 
convicted of nonhomicide offenses were categorically 
barred from receiving life without parole sentences 
because, “when compared to an adult murderer, a 
juvenile offender who did not kill or intend to kill 
has a twice diminished moral culpability.” 130 S. Ct. 
at 2027. Relying on a long line of death penalty 
precedents, Graham, for the first time, recognized 
that a non-death sentence was unconstitutional 
under the Eighth Amendment because a category of 
individuals — in that case, children who did not 
commit murder -  were not sufficiently culpable for a 
life without parole sentence. See id. (citing Kennedy 
v. Louisiana, 554 U.S. 407 (2008); Enmund v.



3

Florida, 458 U.S. 782 (1982); Tison u. Arizona, 481 
U.S. 137 (1987); Coker v. Georgia, 433 U.S. 584 
(1977)); see also Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 
(2005) (excluding children from death, penalty 
because less culpable than adults); Atkins v. 
Virginia, 536 U.S. 304, 319 (2002) (barring people 
with mental retardation from receiving death 
penalty because “the severity of the appropriate 
punishment necessarily depends on the culpability of 
the offender,” and mental retardation rendered 
offender less culpable).

That children are less culpable than adults, 
regardless of their offense, has been firmly 
established by this Court’s holdings in Graham and 
Roper.2 Notwithstanding the seriousness of the 
crimes at issue, youth homicide offenders have 
diminished culpability when compared to adult 
homicide offenders. Moreover, racial overtones and 
stereotyping tainted the widespread enactment of 
laws that exposed youth to life without parole, thus 
contributing significantly to the substantially 
disproportionate number of minority youth 
sentenced to juvenile life without parole. This 
improper influence of race in the sentencing of 
children to life without parole, therefore, raises 
serious concerns about whether such extreme 
sentences are imposed after a constitutionally 
defensible finding of the requisite level of culpability.

2 Indeed, this Court again recently recounted the stark 
range of differences between children and adults reflected in 
the lesser culpability of youth. See J.D.B. v. North Carolina,
564 U .S .___, 131 S. Ct. 2394, 2403-05 (2011) (discussing well-
established deficiencies of youth).



4

Race, of course, cannot -  and should not -  play 
any role in the imposition of criminal sanctions. 
Indeed, “ [discrimination on the basis of race, odious 
in all aspects, is especially pernicious in the 
administration of justice.” Rose u. Mitchell, 443 U.S. 
545, 555 (1979). Thus, this Court has consistently 
condemned the influence of race at all levels of the 
criminal justice system. See Batson v. Kentucky, 476 
U.S. 79 (1986) (race discrimination in use of 
peremptory strikes); Turner v. Murray, 476 U.S. 28 
(1986) (juror’s racial bias); Vasquez v. Hillery, 474 
U.S. 254 (1986) (race discrimination in grand jury 
selection); Whitus u. Georgia, 385 U.S. 545 (1967) 
(race discrimination in grand and petit jury 
selection); Hernandez v. Texas, 347 U.S. 475 (1954) 
(race discrimination against Mexican-Americans in 
petit jury selection); Hill v. Texas, 316 U.S. 400, 406 
(1942) (race discrimination in grand jury selection). 
Yet, given the racial taint on juvenile life without 
parole sentencing, there can be no guarantee that 
children will receive a fair and proper consideration 
of their culpability. Race inhibits the mitigating 
value of youth, thereby impairing the evaluation of 
culpability that is necessary for a juvenile life 
without parole sentencing scheme to fall within 
constitutional bounds. Accordingly, life without 
parole sentencing for any criminal offense cannot 
safely be imposed on youth offenders without 
violating the Eighth Amendment.
II. Race Undermines the Evaluation of 

Culpability in the Sentencing of Children 
to Life Without Parole.

Over two decades ago, the pernicious influence of 
race helped to shape the public, political and legal



5

discourse on juvenile violent crime in the United 
States. The media, academics and legislators 
portrayed youth, and in particular youth of color, as 
exceedingly dangerous, violent and blameworthy.3 
The consistent connection between race, youth and 
criminal behavior undermined the widely accepted 
view, expressly affirmed in Graham, that youth are 
less culpable for their crimes than adults. Graham, 
130 S. Ct. at 2026. In turn, these stereotypes were 
employed to justify the use of harsh punitive 
measures on criminally involved youth that had 
previously been limited to adult offenders.

A. Race Influenced the Implementation of 
Laws Allowing Children to be Sentenced 
to Life Without Parole.

For much of the 20th century, youthful offenders 
were subject to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court, 
a court that recognized that fundamental differences 
between children and adults warranted lesser 
punishments.

The early reformers were appalled . . .  by the 
fact that children could be given long prison 
sentences and mixed in jails with hardened 
criminals. . . . The child — essentially good, as 
they saw it — was to be made ‘to feel that he is 
the object of [the state’s] care and solicitude,’ 
not that he was under arrest or on trial. . . .

3 This Court has recognized the role that false stereotypes 
about people of color can play in sentencing determinations in 
capital cases. See Turner, 476 U.S. at 35 (noting that “[m]ore 
subtle, less consciously held racial attitudes” such as fear of a 
particular racial group “could also influence” sentencing 
decisions).



6

The idea of crime and punishment was to be 
abandoned. The child was to be ‘treated’ and 
‘rehabilitated’ and the procedures, from 
apprehension through institutionalization, 
were to be ‘clinical’ rather than punitive.

In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 15-16 (1967) (alteration in 
original) (citations omitted).4 Thus, “ [t]he juvenile 
court combined the . . . conception of childhood with 
the . . . strategies of positive criminology to create a 
judicial-welfare alternative to the adult criminal 
process for juveniles.” Barry C. Feld, Race, Politics, 
and Juvenile Justice: The Warren Court and the 
Conservative “Backlash,” 87 Minn. L. Rev. 1447, 
1458 (2003) [hereinafter Feld, Race, Politics, and 
Juvenile Justice]. Recognized as lacking maturity 
and fully formed personalities, children were 
removed from the adult process and subjected to 
intervention strategies to serve their best interests 
and prevent further criminal involvement. Barry C. 
Feld, The Honest Politician’s Guide to Juvenile 
Justice in the Twenty-First Century, 564 Annals Am. 
Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci. 10, 12 (1999). The state acted 
as parens patriae to ensure a youth’s well-being. 
Distinctive terminology was employed in an 
“attempt to reduce the stigma attached to juvenile

4 See also Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541, 554-55 
(1966) (describing juvenile court as “engaged in determining 
the needs of the child and of society rather than adjudicating 
criminal conduct”): McKiever v. Pennsylvania, 403 U.S. 528, 
551-52 (1971) (White, J., concurring) (highlighting the
difference between the adult criminal system that accounts for 
adult culpability and punishes them accordingly, and the 
juvenile system that recognizes the lesser culpability of youth 
and works to rehabilitate young offenders).



7

court adjudications.” Michele Benedetto Neitz, A 
Unique Bench, a Common Code: Evaluating Judicial 
Ethics in Juvenile Court, 24 Geo. J. Legal Ethics 97, 
110 (2011).5 This Court secured children’s
constitutional protections in the juvenile court.6

The nature of the juvenile justice system changed 
significantly in the late 1980s and early to mid- 
1990s when our public discourse became “consumed 
by [a] looming threat posed by America’s youth.” and 
a predicted increase in violent juvenile crime. Perry 
L. Moriearty, Framing Justice: Media, Bias and 
Legal Decisionmaking, 69 Md. L. Rev. 849, 850-51 
(2011). The rehabilitative norms that had 
characterized the juvenile justice system since its 
inception were dismantled through “the broadest 
and most sustained legislative crackdown ever on 
serious offenses committed by youth within the 
jurisdictional ages of American Juvenile Courts.” 
Franklin E. Zimring, The 1990s Assault on Juvenile 
Justice: Notes from and Ideological Battleground, 11 
Fed. Sent’g Rep. 260 (1999). “Inherent in many of 
the changes [was] the belief that serious and violent 
juvenile offenders must be held more accountable for 
their actions. Accountability [was] . . . defined as

5 Specifically, “[c]harges are brought as ‘petitions’ instead of 
‘complaints’ or ‘indictments,’ and ‘trials’ are called 
‘jurisdictional hearings.’ Young offenders are referred to as 
‘minors’ or ‘delinquents,’ not ‘defendants’ or ‘criminals,’ and 
convicted juvenile offenders receive ‘dispositions,’ rather than 
‘sentences.’” Id. (citations omitted).

6 See, e.g., McKiever, 403 U.S. 528; In. re Gault, 387 U.S. 1; 
Kent, 383 U.S. 541.



8

punishment or a period of incarceration . . . .”7 
Rather than dispositions based on the needs of a 
juvenile and rehabilitation, states focused on 
punitive sanctions for particular offenses.8 
“ [Pjunitive segregation -  strategies to incapacitate 
and exclude young offenders rather than to change 
and reintegrate them” — were enacted. Feld, Race, 
Politics and Juvenile Justice, supra, at 1559.

This ideological shift was, in part, the product of 
a widespread legislative response to fluctuating 
crime rates among youth.9 Critically, the response

7 Patricia Torbet, et al., U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of 
Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention, State Responses to 
Serious and Violent Juvenile Crime xi (1996). available at 
http:// www. ncjrs. gov/ pdffiles / statresp.pdf.

8 Sara Sun Beale, You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby: Two 
Waves of Juvenile Justice Reforms as Seen from Jena, 
Louisiana, 44 Harv. C.R.-C.L. L. Rev. 511, 521 (2009) 
[hereinafter Beale, Two Waves of Juvenile Justice]; see also 
Jane Rutherford, Juvenile Justice Caught Between the Exorcist 
and a Clockwork Orange, 51 DePaul L. Rev. 715, 721 (2002).

9 Juvenile arrests for violence and homicide rose sharply at 
points between 1986 and 1994. Barry C. Feld, Unmitigated 
Punishment: Adolescent Criminal Responsibility and LWOP 
Sentences, 10 J.L. & Fam. Stud. 11, 29 (2007) [hereinafter Feld, 
Unmitigated Punishment]. However, those rates eventually fell 
in a consistently downward slope to the present day. See Alexia 
Cooper & Erica L. Smith, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Bureau of 
Justice Statistics, Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980- 
2008 4 (Nov. 2011), available at http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/ 
content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf (noting that “[ajfter 1993, the 
[homicide offending] rate fell so much that by 2000, the 
offending rate for teens was near its 1985 level”). A close 
examination of the statistics reveals that “there never was a 
general pattern of increasing adolescent violence in the 1980s 
and 1990s.” Franklin E. Zimring, The Youth Violence

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/


9

coincided with the deliberate reinforcement of a 
perceived link between race and teen crime. 
Throughout the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s, 
the media, academics and politicians consistently 
characterized teen crime in racially coded terms.10 
Efforts to explain teen crime conflated race, youth 
and criminal behavior. Youthful offenders, and in 
particular youth of color, were thought to pose a 
higher threat of violent criminal activity because of

Epidemic: Myth or Reality, 33 Wake Forest L. Rev. 727, 728 
(1998) [hereinafter Zimring, Youth Violence Epidemic]. 
Instead, the variations in the juvenile crime rates which 
occurred over short periods of time are explained by “narrower 
bands of behavior,” specifically “a thin band of highly lethal 
gun attacks . . . and garden variety assaults. . . .” Id.

10 Coded language consists of “symbols or phrases that 
indirectly implicate racial themes” without directly speaking to 
race. Feld, Race, Politics, and Juvenile Justice, supra, at 1553- 
55. It is used to “evoke modern racist sentiments without 
seeming racist or discriminatory [and] allows politicians to 
appeal to cultural archetypes in the collective unconscious 
about the ‘alien other’ who poses a fearful and menacing threat 
to society.” Id. at 1553-54. As overt racism has become 
unacceptable, terms and phrases like tough on crime, urban, 
inner-city, gangs “and welfare now widely serve as ‘coded’ 
[words] that enable politicians to exploit” racial sensitivities 
“without explicitly playing the ‘race card.’” Id. at 1554-55. For 
example, appeals to law and order, “first mobilized in the late 
1950s,” were used by “Southern governors and law enforcement 
officials to generate and mobilize . . . opposition to the Civil 
Rights Movement.” Michele Alexander, The New Jim Crow: 
Mass Incarceration In the Age of Colorblindness 40 (2010). 
Such rhetoric, while appearing facially neutral, carries an 
implicit racial meaning, given its context and connection to 
race. See also City of Memphis v. Greene, 451 U.S. 100, 135-36 
(1981) (Marshall, J., dissenting) (examining historical context 
and connection between language and race to interpret “code 
phrases for racial discrimination”).



10

deficient personal traits — immorality, inherent 
proclivity for violence and remorselessness — rather 
than external factors like substance abuse, family 
dysfunction or criminal associations.11 The proposed 
remedy, therefore, was to control and incapacitate 
youth through harsh punishment.12 The onset of life 
without parole sentences for youth is the 
manifestation of those efforts.

1. The Media.

Both television and print media helped to create 
and reinforce the mythic connection between youth, 
race and criminality.13 As crime rates varied in the

11 Kenneth B. Nunn, The Child as Other: Race and 
Differential Treatment in the Juvenile Justice System, 51 
DePaul L. Rev. 679, 712 (2002); George S. Bridges & Sara 
Steen, Racial Disparities in Official Assessments in Juvenile 
Offenders: Attributional Stereotypes as Mediating Mechanisms, 
63 Am. Soc. Rev. 554, 556 (1998).

12 Increased punitive measures have been linked to racial 
typification, which is “the media’s stereotypical portrayal of 
crime as a minority phenomenon.” Sarah Sun Beale, The News 
Media’s Influence on Criminal Justice Policy: How Market- 
Driven News Promotes Punitiveness, 48 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 
397, 458-61 (2006). In fact, “[w]hen minority offenders are 
stereotyped as particularly predatory or disposed to chronic 
criminal offending, they ‘are seen as more villainous and 
therefore more deserving of severe penalties.’” Bridges & Steen, 
supra, at 555 (citations omitted).

13 The news is a powerful influence that shapes public 
opinion. A 2000 poll found that 81% of people formed their 
beliefs about crime from the news, while 17% gained their 
beliefs through personal experience. Ernestine S. Gray, The 
Media -  Don’t Believe the Hype, 14 Stan. L. & Pol’y Rev. 45, 48 
(2003). The news also “activate[s] and strengthen[s] linkages 
among certain racial categories, violent crime, and the fear and



11

late 1980s and early 1990s, some media began to 
cast youthful offenders as exceedingly violent, 
morally deficient and of color. Moriearty, supra, at 
865-67. Even in the face of declining violent crime 
rates among juveniles,14 media portrayals of children 
accused of crimes continued to carry “silent, racially 
charged messages,” equating youthful criminal 
behavior with skin color. Rutherford, supra, at 720- 
21.

Thus, throughout the 1990s, youth of color were 
“overrepresented as perpetrators and 
underrepresented as victims in media crime stories.” 
Moriearty, supra, at 870. The media described child 
offenders of that era as ‘“super predators,’ ‘youthful 
predators,’ ‘teen killers,’ [and] ‘young thugs,”’ 
focusing almost exclusively on children of color. 
Robert E. Shepard, How the Media Misrepresents 
Juvenile Policies, 12 Crim. Just. 37, 38 (1998). In 
California, for example, “local news reports . . . 
feature [d] people of color as gang members or 
juvenile offenders.” Beth Caldwell & Ellen C. 
Caldwell, “Superpredators” and “.Animals” -  Images 
and California’s “Get Tough on Crime” Initiatives, 
2011 J. Inst. Just. Int’l Stud. 61, 67 (2011). And “ [a] 
survey of local television news in Los Angeles 
revealed that where the race of crime perpetrators 
was identifiable, nearly 70 percent were nonwhite 
males.” Shepard, supra, at 38.

Across the country, portrayals of youth violence 
in visual and print media were “dominated by

loathing such crime invokes.” Jerry Kang, Trojan Horses of 
Race, 118 Harv. L. Rev. 1489, 1563 (2005).

14 See supra note 9.



12

pictures of African-American or Latino youngsters.” 
Id. By 2000, a study of news broadcasts in six major 
U.S. cities found that “sixty-two percent of the 
stories involving Latino youth were about murder or 
attempted murder [although] . . .  in 1998, minority 
youth accounted for only one quarter of all juvenile 
crime arrests and less than half of all violent 
juvenile crime arrests.” Moriearty, supra, at 871. A 
2001 survey revealed that in the preceding decade, 
the media “misrepresent[ed] crime, who suffer [ed] 
from crime, and the real level of involvement of 
young people in crime,” such that whites were 
underrepresented and African-Americans and 
Latinos were overrepresented in depictions of 
perpetrators of violent crime. Lori Dorfman & 
Vincent Schiraldi, Building Blocks for Youth, Off 
Balance: Youth Race & Crime in the News 26 (2001), 
available at http://www.cclp.org/documents/BBY/ 
offbalance.pdf. These faulty portrayals “reinforce[d] 
the erroneous notion that crime is rising, that it is 
primarily violent, that most criminals are nonwhite, 
and that most victims are White.” Id.

The “Central Park Jogger” case — where five New 
York City teenagers were convicted of a crime they 
did not commit — is perhaps the most infamous 
example of the racialization of teen crime and its 
dangerous real-life consequences. In 1989, a young, 
white, female jogger was beaten, raped and left 
unconscious in Manhattan’s Central Park by what 
police thought were as many as 12 youths. Craig 
Wolf, Youths Rape and Beat Central Park Jogger, 
N.Y. Times, Apr. 21, 1989, at B l. Five children, 
aged 14 to 16, were arrested and charged with rape, 
assault and attempted murder in connection with

http://www.cclp.org/documents/BBY/


13

the attack. David E. Pitt, Jogger’s Attackers 
Terrorized at Least 9 in 2 Hours, N.Y. Times, 
Apr. 22, 1989, at 11. “All of the suspects were 
African-American or Latino.” Moriearty, supra, at 
862. The police attributed the attacks to “wilding,” a 
term used by some of the young people brought in for 
questioning about the incident. Id. at 862-63; Pitt, 
supra, at 11. Although those arrested, tried and 
convicted for the attack were ultimately 
exonerated,15 the term “wilding” captured the 
attention of the public and cemented the perceived 
link between race and teenage crime.16

In New York City newspapers alone, the term 
“wilding” would appear 156 times in articles 
over the next eight years. . . . [I]ts racial
connotations were unmistakable. In every one 
of the 156 New York newspaper articles in 
which the race of the perpetrator was 
mentioned in the text, the suspects were 
identified as either African-American or 
Latino males; conversely, with the exception

15 See Susan Saulny, Convictions and Charges Voided In 
'89 Central Park Jogger Attack, N.Y. Times, Dec. 20, 2002, at 
A1 (describing exoneration).

16 Indeed, “ [f|rom the moment the teenagers . . . were 
reported to have confessed, the horrific attack was 
transmogrified in public discourse into an issue of race.” 
N. Jeremi Duru, The Central Park Five, the Scottsboro Boys, 
and the Myth of the Bestial Black Man, 25 Cardozo L. Rev. 
1315, 1348 (2004). The term “wilding” was used to connote a 
form of animalistic savagery reserved for criminally involved 
youth of color. See id. (“[T]he youths were alternately referred 
to as ‘wolf packs,’ ‘rat packs,’ ‘savages,’ and ‘animals.’”).



14

of a single incident, each of the victims was 
described as a white female.

Moriearty, supra, at 863 (citations omitted). The 
intense media attention directed at “wilding” 
“contributed to a growing consensus that there was a 
new menace threatening society.” Michael Welch et 
al., Moral Panic Over Youth Violence: Wilding and 
the Manufacture of Menace in the Media, 34 Youth & 
Soc’y 3, 10 (2002). “Wilding” was used exclusively to 
describe the criminal activity of African-Americans 
and Latinos, thus driving the connection between 
the race of the alleged perpetrators and their 
criminal behavior.

Thus, the media exaggerated representations of 
youth of color as perpetrators of violent crime. As 
detailed below, the media’s racially-laden narrative 
about youth crime, further embraced and shaped by 
many academics and politicians, drove punitive 
measures to incapacitate youth while discounting 
their lesser culpability.

2. The Academics.

The media’s false connection between race, crime 
and youth was corroborated and propelled by 
pseudo-scientific research documenting the 
impending rise of the so-called juvenile “super­
predator.” According to sociologists and 
criminologists at the time, these youth were a 
growing new breed of hyper-violent, morally- 
depraved and criminally-involved children who 
would terrorize society.17 The super-predator myth,

17 See, e.g., Peter Annin, ‘Superpredators’ Arrive, 
Newsweek, Jan. 22, 1996, at 57; David Gergen, Editorial,



15

like “wilding” and other terms associated with the 
moral panic18 over youth violence, relied heavily on 
“racist imagery and stereotypes” and harkened back 
to “historic representations of African Americans 
[and other people of color] as violence-prone, 
criminal and savage.” Nunn, supra, at 712; Mary 
Romero, State Violence, and the Social and Legal 
Construction of Latino Criminality: From El
Bandido to Gang Member, 78 Denv. U. L. Rev. 1081, 
1083-84 (2001). Thus, to the extent that the super­
predator myth contributed to the trend toward 
harsher sentences for young people, racial bias and 
stereotype were critical drivers of that momentum.

The term “super-predator” was first used by then- 
Princeton University Professor and criminologist 
John J. Dilulio, Jr. as part of his effort to explain

Taming Teenage Wolf Packs, U.S. News & World Rep., Mar. 25, 
1996, at 68; Richard Zoglin, Now For the Bad News: A Teenage 
Time Bomb, Time, Jan. 15, 1996, at 52; Maggie Gallagher, 
Juvenile Crime Wave is Just Beginning, Long Beach Press- 
Telegraph, May 20, 1996, at B7.

18 “[M]oral panic over wilding reinforces racial biases 
prevalent in criminal stereotypes, particularly the 
popular perception that young Black (and Latino) 
males constitute a dangerous class. Compounded 
by sensationalistic news coverage on wilding, along 
with carjacking, gang banging and other stylized 
forms of lawlessness associated with urban teens, 
minority youths remain a lightning rod for public 
fear, anger, and anxiety over impending social 
disorder, all of which contribute to additional law 
and order campaigns.”

Welch, supra, at 4.



16

what he and other academies saw as the cause19 and 
effect of variable rates of violent youth crime. 
Dilulio, Super-Predators, supra, at 1. As detailed by 
the Academic Amici, Professor Dilulio forecast an 
impending rash of youth crime and violence -  a 
“demographic crime bomb. ” Id. He warned:

On the horizon . . . are tens of thousands of 
severely morally impoverished juvenile super­
predators. They are perfectly capable of 
committing the most heinous acts of physical 
violence for the most trivial reasons . . . .  [A]s 
long as their youthful energies hold out, they 
will do what comes “naturally”: murder, rape, 
rob, assault, burglarize, deal deadly drugs, 
and get high.

Id. at 4.
Professor Dilulio’s theory was based on 

predictions about population trends, crime rates and 
overt racial stereotypes. He cloaked crime data in

19 Dilulio explained that crime was rooted in what he 
identified as moral poverty, defined as the “poverty of being 
without loving, capable, responsible adult[ ]” role models and 
“growing up surrounded by deviant, delinquent, and criminal 
adults in abusive, violence-ridden, fatherless, Godless, and 
jobless settings.” John J. Dilulio, Jr., The Coming of the Super- 
Predators, The Weekly Standard, Nov. 27, 1995, at 3, available 
at http://cooley.libarts.wsu.edu/schwartj/criminology/dilulio.pdf 
[hereinafter Dilulio, Super-Predators]. According to Professor 
Dilulio and his co-authors, moral poverty creates super­
predators, who are more likely to be African-American children 
and other children of color, who have grown up in what they 
term “criminogenic communities.” See generally William 
Bennett et. al., Body Count: Moral Poverty . . . And How to Win 
America’s War Against Crime and Drugs 22, 28 (1996).

http://cooley.libarts.wsu.edu/schwartj/criminology/dilulio.pdf


17

racial terms, emphasizing the racial demographics of 
the predicted wave of juvenile criminals:

The surge in violent youth crime has been 
most acute among black inner-city males. . . . 
Moreover, the violent crimes experienced by 
young black males tended to be more serious 
than those experienced by young white 
males . . . .  In Los Angeles, there are now 
some 400 youth street gangs organized mainly 
along racial and ethnic lines: 200 Latino, 150 
black, the rest white or Asian. In 1994, their 
known members alone committed 370 
murders and over 3,300 felony assaults.

Id. at 2.
Professor Dilulio placed a racialized gloss on 

population trends to concluding that the mere 
growth in the population of youth of color would 
ensure greater numbers of so-called super-predators. 
He asserted that an increase in the number of young 
males in the U.S. population would “put an 
estimated 270,000 more young predators on the 
streets” by 2010, resulting in what he called a 
probable surge in the “number of young black 
criminals” as the “black crime rate, both black-on- 
black and black-on-white, is increasing.” John J. 
Dilulio, Jr., My Black Crime Problem, and Ours: 
Why Are So Many Blacks In Prison? Is the Criminal 
Justice System Racist? The Answer is Disquieting., 
City Journal, Spring 1996, at 1, available at 
http://www. city-journal.org/printable.php?id=62
[hereinafter Dilulio, My Black Crime Problem].20

20 Professor Dilulio was not alone in feeding the racial 
criminalization of youth and the public perception of an

http://www


18

Professor Dilulio posited that “as many as half of 
these juvenile super-predators could be young black 
males.” Id.21 Professor Dilulio also confined his 
super-predator to urban areas predominantly 
inhabited by people of color. He warned that “the 
trouble will be greatest in black inner-city 
neighborhoods” and that “the demographic bulge of 
the next 10 years will unleash an army of young 
male predatory street criminals who will make even

impending spike in juvenile crime rates. Another example was 
Dr. Frederick Goodwin, the Director of the Alcohol, Drug Abuse 
and Mental Health Administration, who in 1992:

called for a “Violence Initiative” to study violence in 
the inner cities. In choosing to focus on children of 
the inner city, Dr. Goodwin suggested . . . that 
violence had a genetic component; [that] some 
individuals were more vulnerable to violent 
impulses; [that] these individuals could be 
identified at a young age; and [that] such 
vulnerability might be traced to inferior social 
structures, so that “maybe it isn't just careless use 
of the word when people call certain areas of certain 
cities jungles. He also referred to male monkeys 
who were both hyper-aggressive and hypersexual.

Rutherford, supra, at 723 (citations omitted).

21 Professor Dilulio’s predictions were steeped in racial 
overtones:

My black crime problem, and ours, is that for most 
Americans, especially for average white Americans, 
the distance is not merely great but almost 
unfathomable, the fear is enormous and largely 
justifiable, and the black kids who inspire the fear 
seem not merely unrecognizable but alien. . . . 
[S]ome of these children kill, rape, maim, and steal 
without remorse.

Dilulio, My Black Crime Problem, supra, at 4.



19

the leaders of the Bloods and Crips . . . look tame by 
comparison.” Dilulio, Super-Predators, supra, at 1, 3.

Similarly, in a 1996 report to then-U.S. Attorney 
General Janet Reno, Dean James Alan Fox of 
Northeastern University’s College of Criminal 
Justice warned of a “future wave of youth violence” 
due to a population increase in the number of 14-17 
year old African-American males that would begin in 
2005 and “continue to expand well into the next 
century, easily surpassing the population levels of 
twenty years ago.” James Alan Fox, U.S. Dep’t of 
Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Trends In 
Juvenile Violence: A Report to the United States 
Attorney General on Current and Future Rates of 
Juvenile Offending 3 (1996). According to Fox, this 
demographic change alone ensured an increase in 
the number of “teen killers.” Id.

These reports were widely accepted as fact 
despite the lack of evidentiary support, a 
phenomenon detailed by U.S. Surgeon General in 
2001, David Satcher, who at that time wrote that:

[Ojnly a few years ago, substantial numbers of 
leading experts involved in the study and 
treatment of youth violence had come to a 
strikingly different conclusion [about the 
effectiveness of programs to curtail youth 
violence]. Many were convinced then nothing 
could be done to stem a tide of serious youth 
violence that had erupted. . . .”

Office of the Surgeon Gen., Youth Violence: A Report 
of the Surgeon General Preface (2001), available at 
http ://ww w. sur geongener al. gov/libr ary/y outhviolence 
/toc.html. In fact, the super-predator myth gained



20

widespread acceptance throughout the 1990s, and 
the term was popularized by politicians, law 
enforcement officials, media outlets and the public. 
Joseph Margulies, Deviance, Risk, and Law: 
Reflections on the Demand for the Preventive 
Detention of Suspected Terrorists, 101 J. Crim. L. & 
Criminology 729, 746-749 (2011); see also supra note 
17; Gary Marx, Young Killers Remain Well- 
Publicized Rarity: “Superpredators” Fail To Grow 
Into Forecast Proportions, Chi. Trib., Feb. 11, 1998, 
at 1; Caldwell, supra, at 68.

As detailed by the submission of Academic Amici, 
the predictions of a new wave of super-predators 
never came to pass. Rather than increasing, the 
juvenile crime rate “dropped by more than half,” 
thus discrediting the super-predator theory and 
causing Professor Dilulio to concede that “he wished 
he had never become the 1990’s intellectual pillar for 
putting violent juveniles in prison and condemning 
them as ‘superpredators.’” Elizabeth Becker, As Ex- 
Theorist on Young ‘Superpredators,’ Bush Aide Has 
Regrets, N.Y. Times, Feb. 9, 2001, at A19. Surgeon 
General Satcher’s 2001 report rejected the super­
predator myth, stating that:

“ [tjhere is no evidence that young people 
involved in violence during the peak years of 
the early 1990s were more frequent or more 
vicious offenders than youths in earlier years.
The increased lethality resulted from gun use, 
which has since decreased dramatically. There 
is no scientific evidence to document the claim 
of increased seriousness or callousness.”

Office of the Surgeon Gen., supra, at Chapter 1,



21

Myths About Youth Violence; see also id. at Chapter 
3, Superpredators? (describing inaccuracies which 
wholly undermined the super-predator myth). The 
Surgeon General’s report also repudiated the racial 
mythology that youth of color, and African-American 
and Latino youth in particular, were more likely to 
become involved in youth violence. Id. at Chapter 1, 
Myths About Youth Violence, Chapter 2, Prevalence 
of Violent Behavior (noting that while racial 
differences in arrest rates exist, “ [tjhere are 
essentially no differences by race in the prevalence 
rates for serious self-reported violent behavior.”); see 
also id. at Chapter 3, Cumulative Prevalence. Thus, 
the predictions regarding the rise of violent crime 
among youth, and in particular youth of color, were 
proven false by a sober reflection on the actual youth 
crime rate. 22

3. The Legislators.

The legislative response to the myth of rampant 
violence by children of color changed the course of 
juvenile justice and provided a framework for the 
treatment of children that undermined the 
mitigating value of youth. Indeed, significant 
changes to state laws were made in response to the 
panic around juvenile crime. Laws were enacted to

22 See also Zimring, Youth Violence Epidemic, supra, at 728 
(finding that “there never was a general pattern of increasing 
adolescent violence in the 1980s and 1990s” and that “there is 
no basis for making any projections fifteen years forward based 
on [then] current trends”); David Westphal, Predicted Teenage 
Crime Wave Failed to Occur, Numbers Show, Fresno Bee, 
Dec. 13, 1999, at A12 (detailing fact that predicted crime youth 
crime wave never happened); Editorial, Children’s Court: Back 
to the Future, Chi. Trib., July 25, 1999, at 16 (same).



22

ease the prosecution of children in adult court and 
increase the range of harsh criminal sanctions faced 
by criminally involved youth, including life without 
parole sentences. “Racial imagery and racially biased 
political appeals played an important role in creating 
the climate that led to the enactment of this 
legislation.” Beale, Two Waves of Juvenile Justice, 
supra, at 514. The racial appeals that led to 
exposure to harsh sentencing practices were rooted 
in the long-standing, widespread and faulty racial 
stereotypes that presume youth of color are prone to 
violence and criminality and pose a threat to public 
safety. Nunn, supra, at 709-710.

Politicians relied on the racially-charged, super­
predator narrative and what proved to be inaccurate 
predictions about impending juvenile crime rates to 
“pursue genuine get-tough law-enforcement
strategies against the super-predators.” Dilulio, 
Super-Predators, supra, at 6.23 Many adopted the 
racially-laden super-predator mantle popularized by 
Professor Dilulio. Indeed, the misguided language 
became so ubiquitous that then-presidential

23 For example, following the Central Park jogger incident, 
Manhattan Borough President and mayoral candidate David 
Dinkins advocated for an “antiwilding law” with enhanced 
penalties for anyone who committed a crime as part of a group, 
mayoral candidate Rudolph Giuliani called for harsh measures 
to “combat mindless violence perpetrated by marauding gangs 
on ‘wilding’ sprees,” and Mayor Ed Koch pressed for the “death 
penalty in incidents of wilding.” Welch, supra, at 10. Likewise, 
Professor Dilulio noted that “no one in academia is a bigger fan 
of incarceration than I am” and estimated that the United 
States would need to “incarcerate at least 150,000 juvenile 
criminals” in the years following his 1996 article. Dilulio, 
Super-Predators, supra, at 6.



23

candidate Senator Bob Dole proclaimed in a 1996 
radio address that “ [ujnless something is done soon, 
some of today’s newborns will become tomorrow’s 
super-predators — merciless criminals capable of 
committing the most vicious acts for the most trivial 
of reasons.” Dole Seeks to Get Tough on Young 
Criminals, L.A. Times, July 7, 1996, at A16. In 1996, 
Senator John Ashcroft, who later became U.S. 
Attorney General, testified before a Senate 
Subcommittee on Youth Violence, that “ [i]n America 
today, violent juvenile predators prowl our 
businesses, schools, neighborhoods, homes and 
parking lots, leaving in their wake maimed bodies, 
human carnage and desecrated communities.” S. 
1425, The Violent and Hard-Core Juvenile Offender 
Reform Act, Opening Statement of Sen. John 
Ashcroft before the Subcomm. on Youth Violence of 
the S. Comm, on the Judiciary (May 9, 1996).24 
Others spoke to the sentiments that animated the 
super predator narrative. As U.S. Senator from 
Illinois, Carol Moseley-Braun supported punitive 
measures for youth, noting that such tactics were

24 Florida Representative William McCollum, who wrote 
and unsuccessfully supported the Violent Youth Predator Act of 
1996, also used racially charged language to drive harsh 
punishments for youth. The proposed Act, in part, mandated 
adult federal prosecution of 13 and 14 year olds for violent 
crimes or major drug trafficking offenses. Representative 
McCollum relied exclusively on the myth of the super-predator 
in proposing the legislation. The Executive Summary warned 
of the “ [cjoming [sjtorm of [vjiolent [jjuvenile [cjrime” and 
declared that “[n]o population poses a larger threat to public 
safety than young adult criminals.” H.R. 3565, The Violent 
Youth Predator Act of 1996, Statement of Rep. William 
McCollum before the Subcomm. on Crime of the H. Comm, on 
the Judiciary (June 27, 1996).



24

necessary because of “a new category of offender” she 
described as children “who[ ] have no respect for 
human life [and] are arming themselves with guns 
and roaming the streets.”25 President Bill Clinton 
called juvenile crime the “ultimate threat to our 
country,”26 27 and described it as a top law enforcement 
priority, warning in 1997 that “we’ve got about six 
years to turn this juvenile-crime thing around or our 
country is going to be living in chaos.”2'

The state legislative response was 
unprecedented. In nearly one-third of the states, 
laws were enacted to redefine the purpose of their 
juvenile courts to “emphasize public safety, certain 
sanctions, and/or the accountability of offenders.” 
Beale, Two Waves o f Juvenile Justice, supra, at 521. 
Between 1992 and 1997, nearly every state changed 
its laws to ease the transfer of youth into adult court 
and subject children to exceedingly harsh penalties, 
including life without parole. John F. Stinneford, 
Evolving Away from Evolving Standards of Decency, 
23 Fed. Sent’g. Rep. 87 (2010). Forty-seven states 
and the District of Columbia made substantive 
changes to state laws concerning juvenile justice,

25 Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, Should 13-Year-olds Who 
Commit Crimes with Firearms Be Tried as Adults? Yes: Send a 
Message to Young Criminals, 80 A.B.A. J. 46 (Mar. 1994).

26 Earle Ofari Hutchinson, Teen Crisis Not All Bad News, 
Chi. Trib., Aug. 14, 1997, at 23 (internal quotation marks 
omitted).

27 Jonathan Peterson, Gangs, Youth Crimes Target of 
Major Effort: Clinton Says Juveniles Top Enforcement Priority, 
Contra Costa Times, Feb. 20, 1997, at B1 (internal quotation 
marks omitted).



25

including changes that broadened juvenile 
jurisdiction and increased sentences. Torbet, supra, 
at 59. Prosecutors were granted unfettered 
discretion to try youth in adult courts and subject 
the accused to adult sanctions like life without 
parole. Beale, Two Waves o f Juvenile Justice, supra, 
at 521. Critically, as detailed by the Academics 
Amici, these measures were not responsible for the 
decline in juvenile crime or homicide rates.28

The federal legislative response to the rise of the 
so-called teen super-predator provides significant 
insight into how the racialized criminalization of 
youth infected the legislative process. An analysis of 
16 congressional hearings on youth violence, held 
between 1995 and 2001, reveals a clear distinction 
between discourse around racially-tainted gang 
violence29 and the rash of school shootings that took 
place in predominantly white, suburban schools.

28 See also supra note 9; Elizabeth Scott & Laurence 
Steinberg, Social Welfare and Fairness in Juvenile Crime 
Regulation, 71 La. L. Rev. 35, 37, 56 (2010) (noting “that 
studies that have examined the impact of the adoption of 
punitive policies on youth crime rates yield mixed results, 
offering little support for the claim that the declining crime 
rates are largely due to the enactment of harsher laws” and 
that “ [t]he evidence that the reforms have contributed to the 
decline in crime rates is weak.”).

29 Historically, criminally involved youth of color have been 
characterized as gang members, thereby attaching a silent 
racial meaning to the term. Rutherford, supra, at 720-21; see 
also Linda S. Beres & Thomas D. Griffith, Demonizing Youth, 
34 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 747, 763 (2001) (discussing the close 
association between gang membership and minority youth used 
by politicians and commentators to deal in implicit racial 
terms.).



26

Elizabeth Brown, Crime, Governance, and 
Knowledge Production: The “Two Track Common- 
Sense Approach” to Juvenile Criminality in the 
United States, 36 Soc. Just. 102 (2009), available at 
2009 WLNR 25016000 (Jan. 1, 2009). Gang violence 
prompted “‘get-tough’ legislation, punitive political 
rhetoric, and racialized media imagery that 
promote [d] fear of the urban [African-American and 
Latino] male.” Id. Gang members “evidenced the 
emergence of a new class of violent children” created 
by the bad moral choices of single-parent families. 
Id. In response, legislators advocated for the use of 
juvenile justice and adult criminal sanctions as a 
means of social control to curb criminality. In 
contrast, in many cases, school violence demanded 
“the attention and therapeutic, disciplinary, and 
benevolent resources of state power” to intervene in 
the lives of children and prevent such incidents from 
happening again. Id.

Thus, the connections between race, crime and 
youth led to punitive sanctions, like life without 
parole, for young offenders. Sinister beliefs about 
race, crime and age erased the longstanding 
distinction between youth and adults, rendering the 
sentencing practice currently before this Court 
unconstitutional.
III. Consistent with Their History, Juvenile 

Life Without Parole Laws Are 
Overwhelmingly Imposed Upon Children 
of Color.

The pernicious influence of racial stereotypes 
about youth of color, and the punitive crime 
legislation borne from those stereotypes, is evident



27

from the stark racial disparities in the practice of 
juvenile life without parole sentencing. Based on 
available data, it appears that African-American 
youth nationwide serve life without parole sentences 
“at a rate that is ten times higher than white youth 
(the rate for black youth is 6.6 as compared with .6 
for white youth).” Amnesty Int’l & Human Rights 
Watch, The Rest of Their Lives: Life without Parole 
for Child Offenders in the United States 39 (2005), 
available at http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/ 
files/reports/TheRestofTheir Lives.pdf [hereinafter
AI/HRW, Rest of Their Lives]; see also Connie de la 
Vega & Michelle Leighton, Sentencing Our Children 
To Die in Prison: Global Law and Practice, 42
U.S.F.L. Rev. 983, 993 (2008). Though African 
Americans comprise only 16% of the national youth 
population,30 the available data reveals that African 
Americans make up 60% of all youth serving life 
without parole sentences, AI/HRW, Rest of Their 
Lives, supra, at 39. According to this same data, 
“the rate for black youth sentenced to life without 
parole” exceeds that of white youth in every state 
with juvenile life without parole. Id. at 42.

Racial disparities in juvenile life without parole 
sentences are not surprising given that these 
disparities exist at all levels of children’s contact 
with the criminal justice system. See Feld, 
Unmitigated Punishment, supra, at 35-38. “When 
racial/ethnic disparities do occur, they can be found

30 Charles Puzzanchera & Benjamin Adams, U.S. Dep’t of 
Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention, 
Juvenile Arrests 2009, Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 
National Report Series, Dec. 2011, at 6, available at 
www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/236477.pdf.

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/
http://www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/236477.pdf


28

at any stage of processing within the juvenile justice 
system. Research suggests that disparity is most 
pronounced at arrest, the beginning stage, and that 
when racial/ethnic differences exist, their effects 
accumulate as youth are processed through the 
justice system.” Howard N. Snyder & Melissa 
Sickmund, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, Office of Juvenile 
Justice & Delinquency Prevention, Juvenile 
Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report 188 
(Mar. 2006), available at http://www.ojjdp.gov/ 
publications/pubabstract.asp?pubi=234394. Thus, 
although African Americans comprise only 16% of 
the youth population, they make up:

• 28% of juvenile arrests;
• 30% of referrals to juvenile court;
• 37% of the detained population;
• 34% of youth formally processed by the 

juvenile court;
• 30% of adjudicated youth;
• 35% of youth judicially waived to criminal 

court;
• 38% of youth in residential placement; 

[and]
• 58% of youth admitted to state adult 

prison.
Nat’l Council on Crime & Delinquency, And Justice 
for Some: Differential Treatment of Youth of Color in 
the Justice System 37 (Jan. 2007), available at 
http://www.nccd-crc.org/nccd/pubs/2007jan_justice_fo 
r_some.pdf; see also Snyder & Sickmund, supra, at 
176 (providing data on black youth’s

http://www.ojjdp.gov/
http://www.nccd-crc.org/nccd/pubs/2007jan_justice_fo


29

“disproportionate share of cases at all stages of case 
processing” in 2002).

Indeed, “ [tjhroughout the [criminal justice] 
system, youth of color -  especially African American 
youth -  receive different and harsher treatment. 
This is true even when White youth and youth of 
color are charged with similar offenses.” Nat’l 
Council on Crime & Delinquency, supra, at 37; see 
also Feld, Unmitigated Punishment, supra, at 36 
(“After researchers control for present offense and 
prior record, . . . studies consistently report
additional racial disparities when judges sentence 
black youths.”); AI/HRW, Rest of Their Lives, supra, 
at 39 (noting research finding that “minority youths 
receive harsher treatment than similarly situated 
white youths at every stage of the criminal justice 
system, from the point of arrest to sentencing”).31 In 
a study of youth arrested for murder in 25 states 
where there was available data, African Americans 
were found to be sentenced to juvenile life without 
parole at a rate that is 1.59 times higher than white 
youth. Human Rights Watch, The Rest of Their

31 A study of 77,236 individuals sentenced under the 
federal sentencing guidelines demonstrates the severe racial 
disparities in sentencing people of color. See David B. Mustard, 
Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Disparities in Sentencing: Evidence 
from the U.S. Federal Courts, 44 J.L. & Econ. 285 (2001). On 
average, African Americans in this study received sentences 
that were 99.6% longer than sentences for whites. Id. at 296. 
Latinos’ sentences were 68.5% longer. Id. Even when 
controlling for offense level, criminal history, district of 
conviction, and offense type, African Americans, Latinos, and 
other minorities had federal criminal sentences that were, 
respectively, 5.5, 4.5, and 2.3 months longer than their white 
counterparts. Id. at 300.



30

Lives: Life without Parole for Youth Offenders in the 
United States in 2008 6-7 (May 2008), available at 
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/the_res 
t_of_their_lives_execsum_table.pdf.

The racial disparities with respect to juvenile life 
without parole for homicide offenses are especially 
troubling given the steady decline of murders 
committed by children in the past two decades. 
Since 1993, the juvenile arrest rate for murder “fell 
substantially through 2000, resting at a level that 
essentially remained constant for the entire decade. 
Compared with the prior 20 years, the juvenile 
murder arrest rate between 2000 and 2009 has been 
historically low and relatively stable.” Puzzanchera 
& Adams, supra, at 9. This decline was mirrored by 
the juvenile murder arrest rate of African-American 
youth, which “fell . . . considerably more” than the 
rate of white youth from 1994 through 2000, though 
it increased 10% in the past decade. Id.

IV. Proper Evaluation of Culpability Has Been 
Undermined by the Racially Charged 
Criminalization of Youth of Color.

A proper evaluation of culpability is a 
fundamental component of a constitutional sentence 
under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. 
History reveals that racial stereotypes helped to 
propel the implementation of the laws allowing for 
juvenile life without parole sentences, and research 
establishes that children of color are sentenced to life 
without parole at markedly disproportionate rates. 
Because it is clear that race critically and 
inappropriately informs the assessment of
blameworthiness in the context of juvenile life

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/the_res


31

without parole sentencing, such sentences are 
unconstitutional.

As detailed above, the racialized criminalization 
of youth fostered exposure to more punitive 
sanctions, like life without parole, for children. 
These harsh punishments had previously been 
reserved for adult offenders in the criminal justice 
system. “As the blurring of the line between juvenile 
and criminal court increases, so does the likelihood 
that these trends” — like life without parole — “will 
disproportionately affect youth of color.” Natl 
Council on Crime & Delinquency, supra, at 37. Adult 
criminal sanctions for juveniles, and the faulty link 
between race and crime that drives them, 
diminished the mitigating value of youth and, 
therefore, undermined an accurate consideration of 
culpability required in sentencing.

Youthfulness unquestionably has a bearing on 
culpability; this Court’s precedents recognize the 
differences between youth and adults and the 
diminished culpability of juvenile offenders.32 But 
the racial stereotypes animating the laws that allow

32 See Graham, 130 S. Ct. at 2026-27; Roper, 543 U.S. at 
569-70; see also 131 S. Ct. at 2403-04 (detailing this
Court’s precedents describing differences between youth and 
adults); Thompson v. Oklahoma, 487 U.S. 815, 834-35 (1988) 
(O’Connor, J., concurring) (“Our history is replete with laws 
and judicial recognition that minors, especially in their earlier 
years, generally are less mature and responsible than 
adults. . . . The reasons why juveniles are not trusted with the 
privileges and responsibilities of an adult also explain why 
their irresponsible conduct is not as morally reprehensible as 
that of an adult.”) (citations and internal quotation marks 
omitted); Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 (1982) (discussion 
of children less responsible than adults).



32

life without parole sentences for children -  and the 
racially disproportionate implementation of these 
extreme sentences — demonstrate that children of 
color are less likely to receive the “benefit” of youth 
in the context of sentencing for serious crimes. The 
race-based, super-predator narrative itself is “the 
antithesis of childhood;” thus, the policies it wrought 
treat youth accordingly. Nunn, supra, at 713.

Social science studies confirm the pernicious 
impact of racial stereotypes that characterize the 
juvenile, super-predator narrative. In one study, 
researchers activated negative stereotypes about 
juvenile offenders of color in the minds of 200 police 
and probation officers. Sandra Graham & Brian S. 
Lowery, Priming Unconscious Racial Stereotypes 
About Adolescent Offenders, 28 L. Hum. Behav. 483, 
488-95 (2004). Ultimately, the researchers found 
that “unconscious biases trigger the belief that 
[African-American adolescent offenders] are adult­
like and therefore as blameworthy as adults who 
commit similar crimes.” Id. at 500. Police officers 
were “less likely to judge the offender as immature 
(by virtue of adolescence) and more likely to perceive 
him as culpable and deserving of punishment.” Id. at 
494. Moreover, the research demonstrated that “the 
more culpable an offender was perceived to be, the 
greater the endorsed punishment.” Id. at 498.33

Another study, which examined probation

33 The “automatic stereotype activation does not require 
perceivers to endorse the stereotype, to dislike African 
Americans, or to hold any explicit prejudice toward that group. 
Even decision makers with good intentions are susceptible.” 
Id. at 499.



33

officers’ narrative reports concerning sentencing 
recommendations for youth offenders, also confirmed 
that race undermined culpability determinations. 
See Bridges & Steen, supra, at 557-58. The 
researchers analyzed what the probation officers 
deemed the cause of the youth’s criminal behavior 
and found that “officers describe [d] black and white 
youths differently, referring to negative personality 
traits for black youths and more negative 
environmental influences for whites.” Id. at 561. 
“ [B]lack youths were judged [by probation officers] to 
have a higher risk of reoffending than . . . white 
youths.” Id. Moreover, researchers found that 
“ [b]eing black significantly reduces the likelihood of 
negative external attributions,” such as peer groups, 
family dysfunction and drug abuse, “and 
significantly increases the likelihood of negative 
internal attributions, even after adjusting for 
severity of the presenting offense and the youth’s 
prior involvement in criminal behavior. ” Id. at 563- 
64 (emphasis in original). The perceived negative 
personality traits of African-American and other 
youth of color led officials to assess them as more 
culpable and dangerous than white youth and, 
therefore, to recommend more severe sentences for 
youth of color. Id. at 567.

In light of the preceding arguments, the 
possibility that race may play any role in the 
administration of justice is especially disturbing in 
the context of life without parole sentences for youth. 
This Court has recognized the unique severity of 
such sentences, which “alter[ ] the offender’s life by a 
forfeiture that is irrevocable.” Graham, 130 S. Ct. at 
2027. At bottom, the gross racial disparities that



34

pervade life without parole sentencing for children 
demonstrate that negative perceptions of youth of 
color have stymied the proper evaluation of their 
culpability. As detailed in Section I, race cannot 
play any role in the imposition of criminal sanctions. 
The influence of race on the sentencing of youth to 
life without parole, therefore, invalidates and 
renders unconstitutional the practice of sentencing 
children to die in prison.



35

CONCLUSION

The current sentencing structure that imposes 
life without parole sentences on youth offenders was 
borne out of racially charged stereotypes about 
children of color. While these stereotypes have been 
proven false, they have nevertheless undermined the 
constitutionally mandated evaluation of a youth’s 
culpability. This is demonstrated by stark racial 
disparities for children caught within the criminal 
justice system and subsequently sentenced to life 
without parole. Under such circumstances, the 
substantial risk of imposing excessive sentences on 
children calls into question the constitutionality of 
the most extreme sentence currently available to 
them. For these reasons, in addition to those raised 
by Petitioners and their supporting amici, this Court 
should categorically bar all children under the age of 
18 from receiving life without parole sentences.

Respectfully submitted,

John Payton 
Director-Counsel 

Debo P. Adegbile 
Christina Swarns 
Vincent M. Southerland 

Counsel of Record 
Jin Hee Lee
NAACP Legal Defense & 

Educational Fund, Inc.
99 Hudson St., 16th FI.
New York, NY 10013 
(212) 965-2200 
vsoutherland@naacpldf.org

January 17, 2012

mailto:vsoutherland@naacpldf.org


ADDENDUM



la

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, 
Inc. (LDF), is a non-profit corporation formed to 
assist African Americans and others who are unable, 
on account of poverty, to employ legal counsel to 
secure their rights to equal protection under the law. 
LDF has a long-standing concern with the impact of 
racial discrimination on the criminal justice system. 
It has served as counsel of record and/or as amicus 
curiae in this Court in, inter alia, Graham v. 
Florida, 560 U.S. 130 S.Ct. 2011 (2010); Roper u. 
Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005); Kimbrough v. United 
States, 552 U.S. 85 (2007); Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 
U.S. 322 (2003); Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 
(1986); McClesky v. Kemp, 481 U.S. 279 (1987); Ham 
v. South Carolina, 409 U.S. 524 (1973); Alexander v. 
Louisiana, 405 U.S. 625 (1972); Furman v. Georgia, 
408 U.S. 238 (1972); and Swain v. Alabama, 380 
U.S. 202 (1965).

The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race 
and Justice at Harvard Law School (CHHIRJ) 
continues the unfinished work of Charles Hamilton 
Houston, one of the Twentieth Century’s most 
talented legal scholars and litigators. The CHHIRJ 
marshals resources to advance Houston’s dreams for 
a more equitable and just society. It brings together 
students, faculty, practitioners, civil rights and 
business leaders, community advocates, litigators, 
and policymakers to focus on, among other things, 
reforming criminal justice policies.

LatinoJustice PRLDEF was founded in 1972 as 
the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund 
and is one of the nation’s leading civil rights public 
interest law offices that represents Latinas and 
Latinos throughout the Eastern seaboard and works



2a

to increase their entry into the legal profession. 
LatinoJustice PRLDEF has a strong interest in 
addressing civil rights and human rights violations 
within the Latino communities of the United States 
and uses the courts to rectify these abuses. 
Accordingly, it has an interest in the juvenile justice 
matters presented in this litigation and their effects 
on Latino youth.

The Asian American Legal Defense and 
Education Fund (AALDEF), founded in 1974, is a 
national organization that protects and promotes the 
civil rights of Asian Americans. By combining 
litigation, advocacy, education, and organizing, 
AALDEF works with Asian American communities 
across the country to secure human rights for all. 
The racially discriminatory and barbaric treatment 
of juveniles by the criminal justice system threatens 
the rights of Asian Americans and all Americans.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human 
Rights is a diverse coalition of more than 200 
national organizations charged with promoting and 
protecting the rights of all persons in the United 
States. The Leadership Conference was founded in 
1950 by A. Philip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood 
of Sleeping Car Porters; Roy Wilkins of the NAACP; 
and Arnold Aronson, a leader of the National Jewish 
Community Relations Advisory Council. The 
Leadership Conference works to build an America 
that is as good as its ideals, and towards this end, 
opposes the sentencing of juveniles to life without 
parole, a practice in violation of the Eighth 
Amendment’s bar against cruel and unusual 
punishment. Fairness and equality in the 
administration of justice is a fundamental civil and



3a

human right, but the extreme racial disparities that 
exist within the criminal justice system denies this 
right to the most vulnerable segments of society, 
including minorities and youth. In order to advance 
its mission, The Leadership Conference is dedicated 
to eliminating all forms of discrimination from our 
criminal justice system, and as such, has a vital 
interest in the outcome of this case.