Sentencing a juvenile to register as a sex offender and to wearing an electronic monitoring device for the rest of his life is not unconstitutional, the South Carolina Supreme Court ruled earlier this month. The court’s unanimous May 3 decision ...

Tagged with: juveniles

The legal fight over juvenile sentencing standards in South Carolina is finished. But its ending segues into a new challenge for some of the state’s trial judges, prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys.

Tagged with: juveniles life sentence S.C. Supreme Court SCOTUS

Aiken v. Byars (Lawyers Weekly No. 010-130-14, 19 pp.) (Kaye Hearn, J.) (Costa Pleicones, J., concurring) (Jean Hoefer Toal, Ch. J., joined by John Kittredge, J., dissenting) S.C. S. Ct. Holding: Even though petitioners, who were juveniles when they committed ...

Tagged with: Eighth Amendment juveniles

The South Carolina Supreme Court has rejected an argument for allowing juveniles to have jury trials, unanimously holding that the state’s constitution does not entitle underage defendants to be tried in front of juries, despite language in the constitution that ...

Tagged with: juveniles south carolina supreme court

In re Stephen W. (Lawyers Weekly No. 010-072-14, 6 pp.) (John Kittredge, J.) Appealed from Richland County Family Court (Angela Taylor, J.) S.C. S. Ct. Holding: Even though, when our state constitution was adopted, juveniles had the right to a ...

Tagged with: jury juveniles