Juvenile Brains

Check out this editorial in the LA Times, brought to my attention via Southern Center For Human Rights. In a nutshell, the US Supreme Court will address whether sentencing a juvenile to life without the possibility of parole, ever, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment. The litigation involves Alabama law which permits such a practice, common in many states.

As the editorial points out, if the court decides such a practice is unconstitutional it will not have the effect of opening prison gates to persons convicted of violent crimes. Rather, it merely leaves open a chance to consider parole many years down the road. So fear not those of you so quickly to throw away the key, the immediate repercussions do not bite. It will probably just modify life sentences to permit the possibility of parole.

For me, this case is huge in terms of our philosophical stance on moral culpability, human agency, and commitment to retribution in 8th Amendment jurisprudence. Neurobiology and psychological sciences have shed much light on the physiological underpinnings of moral agency and how brain development interacts with social determinants. The gist..... crimes committed in youth are always done without full prefrontal cortex development and a process known as pruning. This case represents an opportune time for amicus and parties understanding the course of neurobiological development to step up and argue that a failure to leave open a "chance" of parole is shutting the door on scientific fact, and keeping our broken system locked in a draconian misconceptions of youth and human behavior.

We all know reform of juvenile justice is crucial and some positive steps have been taken. We need the hight court with the most clout to enlighten legal discourse and insert some validated notions of humanity. Denial of a chance at parole, would be a moral failure to acknowledge fundamental enlightenments about human biology, like the plasticity of the neural structures responsible for forethought, will, and judgement. Subversion of such scientific truth will only continue to cast us into draconian darkness our country finds itself lost in....and on and on.... Anyways, i will be curious to see how much neuroscience plays a role in deciding this case. Let's hope Scalia is in dissent.

The fact that the Supreme Court has agreed to hear this case is somewhat encouraging, though we shall wait to see what they decide.

DHC