"Children and the Law: Constitutional Decisionmaking and the “Peculiar Vulnerability of Children”

dc.contributor.authorWeithorn, Lois A
dc.date.accessioned2018-08-29T15:14:49Z
dc.date.available2018-08-29T15:14:49Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.description.abstractIn 2016, in the juvenile sentencing case of Montgomery v. Louisiana,2 the U.S. Supreme Court remarked that “children are constitutionally different from adults.” Few would disagree with the notion that children differ from adults in many ways. At times, courts have determined that those differences justify—indeed require— differential treatment of children and adults under the Constitution. In its decisions, the Court has identified “three reasons” for treating children differently under the Constitution. It has cited “the peculiar vulnerability of children; [children’s] inability to make critical decisions in an informed, mature manner; and the importance of the parental role in child rearing.”3 While much attention has been paid in recent decades to the latter two factors, there has been comparatively little analysis of how notions of children’s vulnerability relate to constitutional decisionmaking. Here, I focus attention on the concept of children’s vulnerability, examples of which abound in constitutional jurisprudence, despite the absence of substantial discussion of its meaning, parameters, and relevance to constitutional decisionmaking. (Author Text)en_US
dc.identifier.citationWeithorn, Lois A. (2018). "Children and the Law: Constitutional Decisionmaking and the “Peculiar Vulnerability of Children”," The Judges' Book: Vol. 2 , Article 4.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://repository.uchastings.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1019&context=judgesbook
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11212/3920
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherThe Judges' Booken_US
dc.subjectjudgesen_US
dc.subjectjuvenile sentencingen_US
dc.subjectvulnerable youthen_US
dc.subjectcase studyen_US
dc.subjectchild abuseen_US
dc.subjectchild protectionen_US
dc.subjectjurisprudenceen_US
dc.subjectlegal opinionen_US
dc.title"Children and the Law: Constitutional Decisionmaking and the “Peculiar Vulnerability of Children”en_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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