Last week, the North Carolina Supreme Court issued two important decisions concerning the way our state imposes prison time on people who committed crimes when they were children. In State v. Kelliher and State v. Conner, the Court reiterated that children are different than adults and that the North Carolina Constitution imposes “limits on the […]
Tag: juvenile justice
Wilson Center Applauds Gov. Roy Cooper for Exercising Clemency Power
Late last week, Gov. Roy Cooper announced he would commute the sentences of April Barber, Joshua McKay, and Anthony Willis — three individuals who were sentenced to long terms in prison for crimes they committed when they were teenagers. This is the first time Cooper has exercised his clemency power since he was elected Governor […]
Everything You Need to Know About Clemency in North Carolina
By Ben Finholt and Jamie Lau On April 8, 2021, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper signed Executive Order 208, establishing the Juvenile Sentence Review Board. This board is a new mechanism for executive clemency, which has been described as “provid[ing] the ‘fail-safe’ in our criminal justice system.”[1] Often serving as the last resort for someone […]
Newby’s Adverse Childhood Experience Task Force to Meet for First Time This Month
By Carmyn Brown Recently, North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby announced a Task Force to address and study ACEs. ACEs are short for Adverse Childhood Experiences which suggests that childhood trauma and stress can lead to major illness, poor quality of life, and premature death, affecting children between the ages of 0 to […]
NC Supreme Court to Take on 3 Juvenile Life with Parole Cases in Coming Months
By Ben Finholt Last year, Brandon Garrett, Karima Modjadidi, Kristen Renberg, and I published a paper on juvenile life without parole (JLWOP) in North Carolina in The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology at Northwestern Law. We examined the cases of 94 North Carolina juveniles, aged 13 to 17 at the time of their offenses, […]
Governor Creates Board to Review Juvenile Sentences
By Ruthie Kesri Gov. Roy Cooper recently announced the creation of a four-person advisory board to review the prison sentences of juveniles. “Developments in science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds,” Cooper said in a press release. “For those who have taken significant steps to reform and rehabilitate themselves, this process […]
NC Considers Raising Minimum Age of Prosecution From 6 to 10
By Annie Han “The 6-year-old dangled his legs above the floor as he sat at the table with his defense attorney,” said Virginia Bridges of the Durham Herald Sun. In March 2021, an article by Bridges described the case of a young boy forced to appear in court for picking a tulip from a lawn […]