Juvenile Justice Case

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In this course, you learned to differentiate the legal rights, trial processes, and correctional alternatives of adult vs. juvenile offenders. You also learned that juvenile law is constantly evolving and responding to temporary issues. For this assignment, you will be researching a constitutional law case related to juvenile delinquency or criminal proceedings decided by the United States Supreme Court.

To begin, locate an opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court that involves a criminal offender under the age of 18 and raises a constitutional question (or questions) related to the juvenile justice process.

For help locating U.S. Supreme Court cases, see:

After selecting a case, you must write a case brief /analysis. Your case brief/analysis should be 700-1,000 words in length (not including your Reference page). Use distinct headings to clearly identify each element (prompt) of your case brief.

Case Brief Prompts

Your case brief should include each of the following elements:

  • Legal and Procedural History: What is the history of the selected case? What prior courts heard the case? What were the rulings of the involved prior courts?
  • Facts: What are the critical facts of the case? Identify the parties and the facts that were considered in the Court’s ultimate holding.
  • Issues: What were the specific legal question(s) presented to the U.S. Supreme Court? Present the issues in clear and concise question format. If there were multiple legal questions, list each issue separately.
  • Holding (Decision): How did the U.S. Supreme Court answer the issues? What was the Court’s final decision with respect to each issue?
  • Court Rationale: Summarize the U.S. Supreme Court’s reasoning. Why did the Court rule in the way that it did? How and why did the Court arrive at its ultimate answers to the legal issues?
  • Analysis: Share an original analysis and interpretation of the case and the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling. What is the case’s significance? How do the rights of juveniles in this case compare to the rights of adults in criminal cases? How has the case impacted our courts? How has the case impacted our government and/or our citizens? Do you agree with the Court’s analysis?

Using Sources

You may refer to the course material for supporting evidence, but you must also use at least two credible, outside sources and cite them using APA format. Identify all of the sources you used in the Reference page. Any laws and legal cases used in the body of your paper must also be included in the Reference page.

Please include a mix of both primary and secondary sources. At least one of your sources should be the case opinion. If you use any Study.com lessons as sources, please also cite them in APA format (including the lesson title and instructor’s name).

  • Primary sources are first-hand accounts, such as interviews, speeches, statements, and press releases published by the parties involved in the case that you selected.
  • Secondary sources come from peer-reviewed scholarly journals, such as the American Business Law Journal. You may use resources like JSTOR, Google Scholar, Cornell University Law School’s Legal Information Institute and/or FindLaw to find articles from these journals and related case law. Secondary sources may also come from reputable websites with .gov, .edu, or .org in the domain. (Wikipedia is not a reputable source, though the sources listed in Wikipedia articles may be acceptable.)