No Child Left Alone: Why Iowa Should Ban Juvenile Solitary Confinement

• Author: Lisa C. Castillo
• Position: J.D. Candidate, The University of Iowa College of Law, 2015; B.A., The University of Washington, 2012
• Pages: 1259-1284

No Child Left Alone: Why Iowa Should Ban Juvenile Solitary Confinement Lisa C. Castillo  ABSTRACT: In 2012, the United States Supreme Court held in Miller v. Alabama that the mandatory imposition of life without parole on a juvenile offender was a violation of the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. In its rationale, the Court relied on scientific research, distinguishing the mental faculties between juveniles and adults and emphasized juveniles’ ability to change. The Court has used scientific research in a string of opinions over the last decade to reframe the goal of juvenile sentencing reform—rehabilitation. In the interest of rehabilitation, states should prohibit imposing solitary confinement on juvenile inmates. Solitary confinement has cruel and unusual consequences for juveniles and serves no penological purpose, making its use a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Thus, the Iowa Legislature should enact legislation prohibiting correctional facilities from using juvenile solitary confinement, except for the limited circumstance in which the facility can use no other measure to protect the juvenile from immediately and substantially harming others. Even then, confinement must follow strict guidelines to eliminate the risk of misuse and psychological harm to juveniles. A system where facilities only use juvenile solitary confinement to prevent an offender from committing immediate, substantial harm to others is consistent with the goal of rehabilitation, the trend in the Court’s decisions, and the Eighth Amendment.  J.D. Candidate, The University of Iowa College of Law, 2015; B.A., The University of Washington, 2012. Special thank you to Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud and Erin Moody for helping plant the seeds of this Note and cultivating my interest in juvenile jurisprudence; to Brianna Long, my Volume 99 Note and Comment Editor, for her tireless encouragement and guidance throughout the Note-writing process; and to the Volume 100 editors and student writers for their careful editing skills—most especially Amanda Beggs, Rosie Romano, and Ashley Brosius. My Note would not have been what it is without their thoughtful contributions. All errors are my own. 1260 IOWA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 100:1259 I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................... 1261 II. AN OVERVIEW OF JUVENILES IN THE AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM ........................................................................................ 1262 A. T HE E NGLISH C OMMON L AW ’ S T REATMENT OF J UVENILES ...... 1263 B. T HE D OCTRINE OF PARENS PATRIAE AND THE D EVELOPMENT OF A S EPARATE S YSTEM FOR J UVENILES .......................................... 1264 C. T HE C HALLENGES TO THE J UVENILE C OURT S YSTEM AND I TS P HILOSOPHY OF R EHABILITATION .......................................... 1266 III. INCORPORATING SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH IN JUVENILE JUSTICE .... 1267 A. T HE S CIENTIFIC R ESEARCH D ISTINGUISHING J UVENILES FROM A DULTS ................................................................................ 1268 B. T HE S UPREME C OURT ’ S A DOPTION OF THE S CIENTIFIC R ESEARCH ............................................................................. 1268 1. Roper v. Simmons ........................................................... 1269 2. Graham v. Florida .......................................................... 1270 3. Miller v. Alabama .......................................................... 1272 IV. JUVENILE SOLITARY CONFINEMENT VIOLATES THE EIGHTH AMENDMENT ............................................................................... 1273 A. J UVENILE S OLITARY C ONFINEMENT I S C RUEL AND U NUSUAL .... 1274 B. J UVENILE S OLITARY C ONFINEMENT S ERVES N O P ENOLOGICAL P URPOSE ............................................................................... 1275 1. Punitive Solitary Confinement ................................... 1276 2. Protective Solitary Confinement ................................ 1276 3. Administrative Solitary Confinement ........................ 1277 4. Medical Solitary Confinement ................................... 1278 V. STATE RESPONSES TO THE ISSUES WITH JUVENILE SOLITARY CONFINEMENT ............................................................................ 1279 VI. THE IOWA LEGISLATURE SHOULD ADOPT CALIFORNIA’S PROPOSED APPROACH TO JUVENILE SOLITARY CONFINEMENT ..................... 1281 VII. CONCLUSION .............................................................................. 1283 2015] NO CHILD LEFT ALONE 1261 I. INTRODUCTION Society has consistently recognized that children and adolescents are different from adults, 1 but we did not understand the extent to which they differ until new scientific research emerged in the early 2000s. 2 Over the past decade, the United States Supreme Court has adopted scientific research in a trilogy of opinions, reversing the national trend advocating for punitive juvenile jurisprudence. 3 In 2005, the Court held in Roper v. Simmons that imposing the death penalty on juvenile offenders violated the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. 4 The Court found that because of the inherent differences between juveniles and adults, juveniles have diminished culpability, making them less deserving of society’s most severe punishments. 5 Five years later, the Court extended Roper ’s holding in Graham v. Florida by prohibiting states from sentencing juvenile offenders convicted of nonhomicide crimes to life without parole. 6 In 2012, the Court once again used the rationale in Roper to reach its decision in Miller v. Alabama , where it held that the mandatory imposition of a life-without-parole sentence on any juvenile offender is unconstitutional. 7 All three decisions not only emphasized the physiological differences between juveniles and adults, but 1. RICHARD LAWRENCE & CRAIG HEMMENS, JUVENILE JUSTICE 20 (2008) (discussing how Roman civil and canon law and early Jewish and Moslem law called for leniency when imposing punishments on juvenile offenders due to their lack of maturity and lesser capability to tell the difference between right and wrong as compared to adult offenders); see also infra Part II.A (discussing how the English common law differentiated punishments for children and adults based on age). 2. Cruel and Unusual Punishment: The Juvenile Death Penalty: Adolescence, Brain Development and Legal Culpability , JUV. JUST. CENTER (Am. Bar Ass’n, Washington, D.C.), Jan. 2004, at 1 [hereinafter Adolescence, Brain Development and Legal Culpability ], available at http://www. americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publishing/criminal_justice_section_newsletter/crimjust_ juvjus_Adolescence.authcheckdam.pdf; see also infra Part III.A (discussing scientific evidence of the differences between juveniles and adults). 3. See Anthony Giannetti, Note, The Solitary Confinement of Juveniles in Adult Jails and Prisons: A Cruel and Unusual Punishment? , 30 BUFF. PUB. INT. L.J. 31, 33 (2011–2012) (explaining that due to the increase in juvenile crime in the 1990s, the public began to “favor a more punitive approach to juvenile offenders,” which caused state legislatures to pass harsher legislation with respect to juvenile jurisprudence). 4. Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 568 (2005) (“A majority of States have rejected the imposition of the death penalty on juvenile offenders under 18, and we now hold this is required by the Eighth Amendment.”). 5. Id. at 568–71. 6. Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 74 (2010) (“This Court now holds that for a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide the Eighth Amendment forbids the sentence of life without parole.”). 7. Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 2469 (2012) (“We therefore hold that the Eighth Amendment forbids a sentencing scheme that mandates life in prison without possibility of parole for juvenile offenders.”). 1262 IOWA LAW REVIEW [Vol. 100:1259 also noted that because of juveniles’ continuing development, the primary purpose in sanctioning juvenile offenders should be rehabilitation. 8 In light of the Court’s favorable stance on juvenile rehabilitation, this Note argues that juvenile solitary confinement serves no rehabilitative purpose and instead violates the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause. This Note proposes that the Iowa Legislature ban the practice of juvenile solitary confinement, except for the limited circumstance in which there is no other measure to prevent a juvenile offender from immediately and substantially harming others. Part II provides an overview of the development of the American juvenile justice system and the movement towards more punitive juvenile sanctions. Part III explains the scientific research discovering the extent to which juveniles’ mental faculties are underdeveloped and discusses the Court’s incorporation of this research in its rationale behind its recent juvenile sentencing cases. Part IV introduces and analyzes the issues associated with juvenile solitary confinement, arguing its unconstitutionality and inappropriateness. Part V examines how other states have dealt with the issue of juvenile solitary confinement, and Part VI proposes that the Iowa Legislature prohibit the general use of juvenile solitary confinement as an unconstitutional practice. II. AN OVERVIEW OF JUVENILES IN THE AMERICAN JUSTICE SYSTEM The United States did not have a separate justice system for juveniles until the end of the 19th century; however, the underlying concept of courts treating juveniles and adults differently traces back to English common law. 9 First, this Part discusses how the English common law’s policies towards juveniles impacted the development of a juvenile justice system in the United States. Second, this Part examines how the purpose of juvenile courts evolved over time as the Supreme Court aligned juvenile proceedings with adult criminal proceedings. Finally, this Part concludes with an analysis of the most...