On September 9, 2020, Attorney Jellison appeared in the first day of SJC Zoom arguments asking the Court to affirm a juvenile court's order granting her client credit for the time he spent in pretrial detention against the confined portion of his DYS commitment. Attorney Jellison's client spent 6 months in pretrial detention. Adults receive credit for the time they spend in correctional facilities pretrial against custodial sentences. For juveniles, however, this time is dead time. DYS does not use all of its rehabilitative tools in pretrial detention, and the time is not deducted from post-adjudication confinement. Confinement in a jail-like setting is profoundly damaging to youths' well-being. And pretrial detention burdens the exercise of important pre-trial and trial rights. Further, the youth most likely to be held pretrial and suffer these harms are the Commonwealth's most vulnerable: Black, Hispanic and/or Latino, and multi-system youth. Hopefully the SJC will see the policy against pretrial detention credit as unfair and take steps to provide credit to youth.
Juvenile Murder Defendants Deserve Individualized Sentencing
On October 22, Attorney Shih filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Boston Bar Association arguing that the automatic imposition of life with the possibility of parole on juveniles without an individualized sentencing hearing violates Art. 26 by precluding consideration of the distinctive characteristics of youth. Given the Supreme Judicial Court’s recent decisions in Lutskov and Perez II, as well as improved scientific understandings of juvenile brain development, “[i]t is a natural progression for this Court to find that art. 26 prohibits the non-discretionary imposition of life with parole for juvenile second-degree murder defendants.” Shih, who also authored the BBA’s brief in Lutskov, said, “We hope the Court will take this moment to recognize recent scientific and legal developments that have improved our understandings of the distinctive characteristics of youth and continue to expand the notion of justice accordingly, to provide the protections constitutionally necessary to ensure that these distinctions are appropriately incorporated into sentencing for juveniles.” Read the brief here.
No Juvenile Mandatory Minimums
Attorney Meredith Shih filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Boston Bar Association arguing that the SJC should not permit adult mandatory minimums for juveniles. There must be an individualized sentencing hearing that takes account of the constitutionally significant differences between juveniles and adults.