Summary of Argument
The Extended Juvenile Jurisdiction (EJJ) provision of the Illinois Juvenile Court Act is void for vagueness because the requirement that EJJ-prosecuted youth not “violate the provisions of the juvenile sentence” fails to put juveniles on proper notice as to prohibited conduct and fails to provide even minimal guidance to government actors in its appropriate application and enforcement. Among states with comparable statutory provisions, Illinois stands almost alone in its failure to provide notice and guidelines as to what conduct will trigger imposition of the adult sentence; eight of the ten states with comparable sentencing statutes provide clarifying guidance that is missing from the ambiguous Illinois EJJ statute. The vagueness of its language undermines the EJJ statute’s goals of protecting the community and preserving rehabilitative opportunities for youth who can benefit from them. Principles of effective rehabilitation require clear rules and sanctions; and the ambiguity of the EJJ provision allows for youth to be inappropriately stripped of the benefits of the juvenile system on the basis of technical violations that have no bearing on the youths’ amenability to rehabilitation.
Additionally, allowing a hearing on an EJJ motion to occur after a motion to transfer a case to criminal court has been heard and denied is contrary to the policies underlying blended sentencing statutes because such statutes were designed to reduce the number of transfers to adult court by providing juvenile court judges with an additional dispositional option. Successive hearings on the same essential issue (whether a juvenile should be subjected to an adult sentence) do not serve to expand the dispositional authority of juvenile courts. Instead, subsequent hearing undercut the ability of a juvenile court to evaluate the appropriateness of transfer or EJJ and compare their relative suitability to the juvenile in question. Furthermore, conducting separate EJJ and transfer hearings undermines the Balanced and Restorative Justice Principles embraced by the Juvenile Court Act because disrupting the finality of the transfer decision harms victims and the community and interferes with the rehabilitation of juveniles. Conducting separate EJJ and transfer hearings is also illogical in light of the similarity of the legal questions involved and is a waste of judicial resources.
Finally, research in adolescent development supports a finding that Christopher invoked his Fifth Amendment right to counsel when he stated, “I think I should have a lawyer” or “Do I need a lawyer.” Academic studies in adolescent psychology demonstrate that there are distinct differences between adults and juveniles such that youth have greater difficulty understanding their Fifth Amendment rights and asserting them in a straightforward, direct manner. In light of these findings, Christopher’s statements were a sufficient invocation under prevailing law of his desire to speak to a lawyer and, as a result, further questioning by the police should have ceased. This conclusion is supported by groundbreaking findings in adolescent neurology which demonstrate that the human brain continues to develop well into the late teens and early twenties, particularly in areas governing tasks related to a request for counsel. U.S. Supreme Court case law and jurisprudence also distinguishes between adults and minors by extending greater protections or fewer rights to juveniles based upon their distinct developmental differences and supports consideration of Christopher’s 14 years, lack of experience in the criminal justice system and lack of assertiveness before authority as part of the calculus to be undertaken by a court in determining that Christopher had invoked his Fifth Amendment right to counsel.