Argument
The neuroscience of adolescent development highlights the characteristics of adolescent behavior, decision-making, and significant capacities for change.
Adolescent behavior is characterized by impulsivity and recklessness; discounting future consequences; peer influences; biased risk appraisal and decision-making vulnerable to emotional states; and preferences for novelty and stimulation.
Adolescents demonstrate capacities based in brain and social maturation for remarkable growth and change as they age into young adulthood.
Juveniles who have engaged in criminal behavior ordinarily self-desist with maturation.
Criminological evidence shows that juvenile sex offenders rarely sexually reoffend, and rarely commit sex crimes as they become adults.
Juvenile sex offenders are very responsive to evidence-based treatment.
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT:
Evan McCarrick Jerald is sentenced to a minimum 208 years in prison before parole eligibility following conviction on multiple counts of sexual misconduct with two minors under the age of 15 (life terms as discretionary sentences) and molestation of a minor (presumptive sentences). He was 15 - 16 years old at the time of his offenses but tried as an adult. Arizona law precludes consideration of consecutive sentences in a de facto life sentence analysis when the offender’s conduct was at the core of the criminal misconduct. The Arizona Court of Appeals affirmed that (a) this de facto life sentence cannot be reviewed on the basis of the actual outcome of imposition of individual consecutive sentences, (b) each sentence is not “grossly disproportionate” to the crimes committed, and (c) his trial as an adult was proper under A.R.S. § 13-705 (Dangerous Crimes Against Children) (State v. Jerald, No. 2 CA-CR 2021-0105 (Ariz. Ct. App. Apr. 15, 2024)). The court opined that Jerald’s severe punishment is justified by the impact of his crimes and that it saw “no basis for second guessing” a mitigation analysis by the sentencing court. Jerald will die in prison for his crimes.
Nonetheless, substantial developmental brain and social science support a view that the sentence imposed in this case is excessively “lengthy, flat and consecutive” although not mandatory, and also ”grossly disproportionate” given his age and developmental stage at the time of his offenses, minimal likelihood of sexual recidivism, and the responsiveness of sexually abusive youth to evidence-based interventions.
Robust brain and social sciences show that juveniles are neurologically and socially distinct from adults yet uniquely capable of positive growth, and so warrant different sentencing considerations. Adolescents (puberty–age 17) and emerging young adults (ages 18–25) demonstrate significant capacities for change through social learning, social maturation, improved decision-making, and increased emotional and behavioral control reflecting profound brain maturation. Maturational changes improve impulse control, risk assessment, planning, and self-regulation—capabilities most relevant to criminal acts. Our youthful selves simply neither determine nor predict our adult lives.
The Court of Appeals upheld a sentence confining Mr. Jerald for a minimum 208 years. This sentence is not required to achieve general (especially among juvenile offenders) or specific deterrence, nor community safety by lifelong incapacitation given treatment responsiveness of juvenile sexual offenders. It abandons rehabilitation. The sole penal justification is punishment, but the onerous sentence imposed is unnecessary to achieve even that goal and therefore grossly disproportionate. Adolescent sexual recidivism rates are between 2 - 7 percent and these individuals respond extremely well to evidence-based treatment. Jerald’s sex offenses as a teenager - as serious as they are - should not dictate his death in prison. The legal landscape has shifted due to consistent findings in neuroscience, developmental behavioral sciences, and criminology. The weight of this science has moved courts and legislatures to bar mandatory life without possibility of parole even for juvenile homicides, reconsider discretionary life and de facto life sentences as developmental immaturity itself mitigates culpability, and to focus on the rehabilitation of youth and emerging young adults. This shift is reflected in landmark United States Supreme Court decisions such as Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010), and Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012). These cases reflect the Supreme Court’s reliance upon science to require sentencing courts to consider the unique mitigating attributes of youth, (e.g., immaturity, impulsivity, recklessness, peer influences, emotionally driven decision-making, remarkable capacities for change with maturation).
Amicus urges the Court to reconsider the reality of Mr. Jerald’s sentence in light of robust science findings in neurodevelopment, developmental psychology and social sciences, and criminology.
ARGUMENT:
1. THE NEUROSCIENCE OF ADOLESCENCE HIGHLIGHTS BOTH VULNERABILITIES AND A SIGNIFICANT CAPACITY FOR CHANGE.
A. Adolescent Vulnerabilities Reflect Brain and Social Development
The paradigmatic teenager is well-described in brain and developmental sciences as more impulsive and reckless, novelty and sensation-seeking, over-focused on immediate rewards to their own future detriment, less capable of assessing risks or applying risk judgments to their own situations, more sensitive to peer influences, and more susceptible to emotional turmoil. However, adolescents also exhibit remarkable capacities for positive growth and change as they mature into young adulthood. even if they have engaged in persistent or dangerous misconduct. Risky and impulsive behaviors based in still-developing neural pathways peak in adolescence but diminish through young adulthood with maturation of the frontal cortex.
Adolescents also tend to discount future positive or negative consequences in favor of short-term gains (“temporal discounting”). Those aged 12–20 exhibit diminished capacities to weigh the likely long-term outcomes of their actions that obstruct the ability to reliably assess risk and make good decisions (particularly when applying those appraisals to themselves). This amplified sensitivity to rewards that biases risk appraisal and decision-making makes them vulnerable to reckless behavior. These features attenuate with maturation as accelerated prefrontal cortex development improves impulse control, planning, and anticipation of likely outcomes.
B. Adolescents Demonstrate Capacities for Positive Growth As They Mature.
For nearly all adolescents, the aforementioned traits recede with maturation into early adulthood. This reflects the brain’s mutability and reorganization as teens mature. Connections between the striatum and prefrontal cortex are strengthened in late adolescence—reducing impulsivity while improving risk-appraisal and decision-making towards short- and long-term goals. This improves capacities to control emotions, consider the consequences of actions, and plan for the future.
Personality traits contributing to misconduct also change with maturation. Negative emotions and emotional instability decrease while agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to new experiences increases. Even youth with callous-unemotional youth traits earlier labeled as “psychopathic” show positive personality changes as they age.
C. Youth Who Engaged in Criminal Conduct Routinely Self-Desist With Age. Adolescents tend to make better decisions and adopt positive adult roles as they mature. Even most youth who are chronically engaged in violent and/or sexual misconduct tend to self-desist from crime as they mature - regardless of whether or not they have been punished through justice systems for those behaviors. One consistent finding in criminology is the “age-crime curve” — misconduct sharply increases with the onset of puberty but then sharply decreases in early adulthood. Both violent and property crime markedly decrease upon entering the early 20’s, tracking closely the interplay of brain and social development. 2. NEARLY ALL JUVENILE SEX OFFENDERS SELF-DESIST FROM SEX CRIMES AND/OR RESPOND TO EVIDENCE-BASED TREATMENT Very few juveniles who commit sex offenses sexually reoffend. Caldwell’s (2016) meta-analysis examined 106 studies of adolescent sex offender recidivism from 2000 to 2015 and found a sexual recidivism rate of 2.75 percent, substantially lower than adults with sexual recidivism rates of 24%. Adolescents tend to have less fixed sexual behaviors, interests, and arousal patterns. They are more amenable to change than adults and very few commit new sex offenses after detection. As with most other adolescent offenders, juvenile sexual offenders self-desist with maturation and are also amenable to evidence-based interventions. Indeed, (1) adolescents with abusive sexual behavior are remarkably responsive to treatment services, and (2) evidence-based treatment models are highly effective at reducing sexually abusive behavior among youth. Adolescent treatment programs for sexual misbehavior typically yield dramatic reductions in sexual offense behavior.
CONCLUSION
Amici ask that the court consider the reality of Mr. Jerald’s de facto life sentence in light of extensive developmental social and neuroscience. Mr. Jerald was a juvenile at the time of his sexual offenses. This may first seem a negative prognostic factor reoffense risk. However, robust research demonstrates that nearly all juvenile sex offenders desist upon detection and as they mature and that their sexual misconduct is ordinarily extremely responsive to evidence-based intervention. Consideration of his developmental immaturity, youthful capacities for rehabilitation, and likelihood of responsiveness to intervention are warranted to avoid the “gross disproportionality” of a sentence that is —in reality—a sentence of life without hope of eventual consideration for parole.