Reconsidering North Carolina’s Minimum Age of Jurisdiction

By Eric Zogry

In 2019, North Carolina raised the age of juvenile jurisdiction from 16 to 18. This law, which was in effect for a hundred years, addressed the maximum age at which a person would be charged in juvenile court rather than adult court. Much attention was paid to the fact that North Carolina was one of the last states to automatically criminalize 16- and 17-year-olds for any offense. But did you know that North Carolina is currently the only state in the country to charge youth as young as six years old?

The minimum age of jurisdiction is the youngest age a child may be charged with a crime. Though many (29) states have no minimum age, North Carolina has the distinction of being the state with the youngest minimum age. There doesn’t appear to exist any legislative history on why this age was set, so it’s difficult to determine the policy rationale behind setting the age of six.

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When Children Reject Contact With a Parent

By Suzanne Chester

As a child’s attorney, I read an article by the child psychiatrist, Dr. Roy Lubit, with interest. The article is entitled “Valid and invalid ways to assess the reason a child rejects a parent: The continued malignant role of ‘parental alienation syndrome’” and is available in the Journal of Child Custody, 16(1): pages 42-66. Lubit’s article is loosely based on his review of fourteen child custody evaluations in which the forensic evaluator concluded the child had rejected a parent because of “parental alienation.” Lubit exposes the seriously flawed methodology and implicit bias which, he argues, led the evaluators to interpret the facts of the custody case through the lens of “parental alienation,” and to reach the foregone conclusion that “parental alienation” was responsible for the child’s rejection of a parent. By contrast, Lubit explores how a child’s rejection of visitation with a parent is much more often motivated by one of the following reasons: a) the child’s desire to remain with their primary attachment figure; or b) the child’s justified estrangement from a parent as a result of mistreatment or abuse; or c) a parent with major parenting deficiencies. As Lubit remarks: “[t]ragically for both justice and the welfare of children, conclusions concerning why a child rejects a parent frequently have more to do with who is doing the evaluation than the facts of the case and current scientific knowledge” (10).

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No More Minors in Jails

By Jacquelyn Greene 

This article was originally published on the UNC School of Government blog On the Civil Side and has been republished with permission.

No More Minors in Jails

Many people assumed that the implementation of raise the age on December 1, 2019 meant the end of confinement of anyone under 18 in a jail. That was not the case. Even under our new legal framework for juvenile jurisdiction, some youth under 18 still have cases that are handled in criminal court from the very beginning. There is currently no legal mechanism to house these youth in a juvenile detention facility instead of a jail. This changes on August 1, 2020, when Part II of Session law 2020-83 takes effect.

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Education Decisions in the Wake of COVID-19

By Jen Story

Fellow advocates,

I write to provide a few updates and red flags regarding plans for the upcoming school year in light of ongoing coronavirus spikes.

These updates are directly relevant to any education clients you currently have in your offices, and also to any other clients who may have school-aged children in the home.

 

  1. Gov. Cooper has announced that the default plan for schools will be “Plan B,” which requires a hybrid in-person/remote plan to be created locally. This plan will enable districts and charter schools to operate at no more than 50% capacity whenever in-person instruction occurs.

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On A Mission To Address Racial Injustice

As members of the Juvenile Justice and Children’s Rights Section, we stand in solidarity with our friends and colleagues in the Black community and condemn the tragic and senseless killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, and many others. We know that racism is deeply rooted in American society and recognize the devastating impact it has on people of color, from daily indignities and marginalization to the tragic loss of these four lives and so many more. We cannot remain silent in the face of these injustices. As lawyers and advocates, it is our ethical duty to condemn white supremacy and actively work to eliminate racial bias in the justice system.

A key mission of the Juvenile Justice and Children’s Rights Section is to promote racial justice through education, awareness, and advocacy within the North Carolina Bar Association, and most importantly, through our work as child and youth advocates. Several years ago, we established a Racial Justice Committee to directly address the harmful impact of structural racism on children of color across systems, including education, child welfare, and juvenile justice. These systems disproportionately fail children of color, as evidenced by the achievement gap, the overrepresentation of minority children in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, and the school-to-prison pipeline.

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Juvenile Justice Pandemic Lessons

This article was originally published on the UNC School of Government blog On the Civil Side and has been republished with permission.

The Juvenile Jurisdiction Advisory Committee (JJAC) met on May 15. The meeting began with a presentation from William Lassiter, Deputy Secretary for Juvenile Justice. While the goal of the presentation was to provide data on trends since implementation of raise the age and the resulting resource needs, the presentation included information and data about juvenile justice system trends during this unprecedented pandemic. The data left me wondering—can changes in juvenile justice system utilization during the pandemic teach us lessons for the functioning of the system outside of a pandemic?

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Disproportionate Minority Contact in North Carolina

By Eric J. Zogry 

In June 2019, Disproportionate Minority Contact in North Carolina: An Assessment Study by Stan Orchowsky, Ph.D., Cambiare Consulting and Michael J. Leiber, Ph.D. and Chae M. Jaynes, Ph.D., University of South Florida, was released through a grant from the North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission. This was the first statewide study on disproportionate minority contact (DMC) in the juvenile justice system since 2013.

The goal of the assessment study was to determine whether, where and why DMC exists in North Carolina’s juvenile justice system. The analysis is based on using the Relative Rate Index, or “RRI.” The RRI is the ratio of the proportion of minority youth at a given stage to the proportion of white youth at that same stage. If both groups are being processed at the same rate, then the RRI would be equal to 1. RRIs above 1 indicate disproportionate minority contact at that stage of the system.

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Coronavirus Updates and Resources for Parents and Students

By Jen Story

Update: Since this compilation of updates and resources was published last week, new guidance has been released by the US Department of Education and Governor Cooper has issued a second executive order extending school closures. Legal Aid staff are in communication with state officials about these changes and will have updated information and more practical tips posted to the website below by the end of this week or early next week.  Please continue to check back!

Legal Aid of North Carolina has put together a resource with summaries of Coronavirus updates related to students’ access to school. Specifically, we included updates and tips related to:

  1. school closures;
  2. educational access for students while schools are closed;
  3. educational access for special education students while schools are closed;
  4. student nutrition services while schools are closed;
  5. student privacy rights related to the COVID-19 outbreak;
  6. general federal and state resources; and
  7. miscellaneous resources for students and families.

Much of this is and will be in flux in the coming weeks, and so we plan to monitor things closely and will update the guide on an ongoing basis as we receive updated information. To that end, people should continue to check back for updated information.

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Fight Hunger, Help Others in the COVID-19 Pandemic – Participate in the Legal Feeding Frenzy and Support Your Local Food Bank!

Michele Livingstone

Will Quick

By Michele Livingstone and Will Quick

We are in unprecedented times with COVID-19 (Coronavirus).  It is now more important than ever that we help our neighbors and those who are not as fortunate. I am confident that each of you is doing your part.

Even in the best of times, however, over 1.5 Million North Carolinians struggle with hunger—of those, nearly half a million are children. With public schools and many religious and nonprofit organizations that traditionally serve the food insecure in our communities being closed for indefinite periods, and government leaders calling for social distancing to help limit the spread of Coronavirus, that need is never more pressing than now.

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Raise the Age Tips and Resources for Law Enforcement

Jacquelyn Greene, Assistant Professor of Public Law and Government for the UNC School of Government, recently posted the following item regarding the new Raise the Age law on the On the Civil Side blog of the UNC School of Government:

Raise the Age Tips and Resources for Law Enforcement

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