February 23, 2015

Catholic University law school Professor Cara Drinan spoke at William & Mary Law School on Feb. 16, discussing her paper, "The Miller Revolution."

She discussed the Supreme Court's recent juvenile sentencing decisions, culminating in Miller v. Alabama, and the way in which those decisions have enabled significant juvenile justice reform efforts. Drinan's paper, which has been accepted for publication in the Iowa Law Review, states in part: "In a series of cases culminating in Miller v. Alabama, the United States Supreme Court has limited the extent to which juveniles may be exposed to the harshest criminal sentences. Scholars have addressed discrete components of these recent Court decisions, from their Eighth Amendment methodology to their effect upon state legislation. In this Article, I draw upon that scholarship to make a broader claim: the Miller trilogy has revolutionized juvenile justice. While we have begun to see only the most inchoate signs of this revolution in practice, this Article endeavors to describe what this revolution may look like both in the immediate term and in years to come."