When it comes to a youth’s adjudicative competence, do age and maturity matter to judges?

In Graham v. Florida, Roper v. Simmons, and J.D.B v. North Carolina, the US Supreme Court recognized differences between adolescents and adults. For example, in J.D.B v. North Carolina, the Court wrote that “officers and judges need no imaginative powers, knowledge of developmental psychology, training in cognitive science, or expertise in social and cultural anthropology to account for a child’s age.… Read More