The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court announced on January 11, 2024 its decision that the state’s mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) is unconstitutional for emerging and young adults ages 18 to 20 who are convicted of homicide. The long-awaited ruling in the case of Mattis vs. Massachusetts means that 203 incarcerated persons previously sentenced to LWOP will eventually be eligible for a parole or resentencing hearing after serving at least 15 years. Prior to the state’s highest court ruling, Massachusetts was only one of ten states with a LWOP mandatory sentence for persons over 18 who are found guilty of homicide. 

Research on Neurodevelopment

The 4-3 majority decision by the Court was based on the enormous body of scientific evidence about neurodevelopment demonstrating that an individual’s brain continues to develop well into their twenties. The brains of the 20-year-old and the 13-year-old are similar when it comes to acting on impulse, taking risks, seeking immediate reward and yielding to peer influence. “The scientific record strongly supports the contention that emerging adults have the same core neurological characteristics as juveniles have. As such, they must be granted a meaningful opportunity to obtain release based on demonstrated maturity and rehabilitation,” wrote Chief Justice Kimberly S. Budd in the majority opinion.

Mattis Case

The case involved Sheldon Mattis who was sentenced to LWOP for involvement in a homicide in 2011, when he was 18 years old. The 17-year-old Nyasani Watt who fired the gun was just 10 days shy of his 18th birthday, and was tried and sentenced as a juvenile. In 2013 Massachusetts had banned mandatory LWOP sentences for juveniles (under the age of 18) who were guilty of first-degree murder. Watt was therefore deemed eligible for a parole hearing after serving 15 years. Mattis, who was sentenced as an adult, will now have the same opportunity. 

2022 Ruling Upheld

The Supreme Judicial Court’s decision upholds the 2022 finding by Suffolk County Superior Court Judge Robert Ullman that mandatory life prison terms of adults under 21 constitute cruel or unusual punishment, which is banned by the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. In 2020, the Supreme Judicial Court had rejected Mattis’ appeal, but expressed concern about the disparity in sentences that Mattis and Watt received. It directed Judge Ullman to undertake a review of the evolving research on brain development and to determine whether the prohibition on mandatory life sentences should be extended to 18- to 20-year-olds. He ruled that it should. “The Court concludes that there is a mismatch between the culpability of 18- through 20-year-olds as a class and mandatory life without parole sentences that preclude a judge from granting parole eligibility”, he wrote. 

Expert Testimony

Judge Ullman’s 32-page opinion was informed by live testimony from CLBB’s Executive Director Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD, and national experts Adriana Galvan, PhD (UCLA) and Stephen Morse, JD, PhD (University of Pennsylvania) and by written testimony from Laurence Steinberg, PhD (Temple University). CLBB’s 2021 White Paper on the Science of Late Adolescence was provided as an exhibit. 

Longstanding efforts through the courts to reform juvenile and young adult justice date back to cases in the 1960s, and include landmark cases such as the US Supreme Court’s ban in Roper v. Simmons (2005) of the death penalty for capital offenses committed under age 18. “With the findings of our two courts in Massachusetts, neuroscience in the law has come of age,” said Dr. Kinscherff. “We knew intuitively and experientially that there’s no hard line between adolescence and adulthood, but it took the advent of MRI and fMRI technologies to show us exactly why.”

December 7, 2023, 12:00 PM ET

A child born in America today has a 37% chance of having their welfare investigated by the state by the time they turn 18. For black children, the probability rises to 53%. Over next 18 years, 145 million American children will be referred to child protective services. What does this mean? And what can be done about it?

This seminar was broken into two sections. First, Saul Glick, Senior International Fellow in Law, Policy, and Applied Neuroscience, and Kathryn Spearman, registered nurse and PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins, discussed their research and upcoming paper on the impact crime related events are having on America’s children and the system which is designed to protect them. 

Second, Saul discussed the novel intervention, C.A.R.E. (Child At Risk Evaluation), which he designed to enhance the training, data gathering, and information sharing techniques used by frontline mandatory reporters. C.A.R.E. will be piloted in early 2024 in a mid-sized American city. 

PANELISTS:

Saul Glick, MA is the International Fellow for Law, Policy, and Neuroscience for the Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience a collaboration between the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Law, Brain and Behavior (CLBB) and the Petrie-Flom Center. After graduating with an M.A. in English Literature from the University of Edinburgh, Saul joined London’s Metropolitan Police Service (Met), where he was a police constable (PC), a public order (demonstrations and protests) officer, and attached to various detective units. In 2021, Saul won the Kennedy Scholarship, which annually sends British post-grads on full scholarship to either Harvard or MIT; Saul was a special student attached to Harvard’s psychology department.

Kathryn Spearman, MSN, RN is a pediatric nurse and a PhD candidate at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing whose doctoral training is funded through a F31 training grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Development. Ms. Spearman’s research focuses on intimate partner violence (IPV) and child maltreatment, firearm injury prevention, IPV-related homicides of women and children, and risk-assessment. Her scientific inquiry is informed by clinical experience working as a pediatric nurse with abused children in inpatient and residential treatment settings. Her BS and MSN are from the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, respectively, and she earned a graduate certificate in maternal child health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  

December 12, 2023, 12:30 PM ET

Watch the recording here!

Drawing on the science of substance use disorders (SUD), this presentation focused on legal responses to SUD that contradict neuroscience and behavioral research, such as incarcerating individuals on probation following a relapse. Implications for bail, sentencing, probation, and parole will be discussed as well as client-centered considerations. The presentation also included science-informed criminal justice approaches that support treatment and recovery.

PANELISTS:

Introduction: Susannah Baruch, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center

Lisa Newman-Polk, Esq., LCSW, Lead counsel for Julie Eldred in Commonwealth v. Eldred 

Stephanie Tabashneck, PsyD, JD, Senior Fellow in Law and Applied Neuroscience, Center for Law, Brain and Behavior and the Petrie-Flom Center

By Dr. Robert Kinscherff, May 31, 2023, 2:00 a.m.

The editorial supporting “Raise the Age” legislation is consistent with years of research in criminology, developmental psychology, and brain science (“An unfinished piece of criminal justice reform business: Raising the age for juvenile offenders,” May 25). Raise the Age legislation is an important step to being “smart on crime” while avoiding the tired rhetoric of being “hard” or “soft” on crime. Young people who commit crimes would be held accountable but in ways that are developmentally aligned and don’t result in increasing risks of committing future crimes. Simply put, this evidence-based “smart” approach for young adult offenders reduces criminal recidivism, and that makes communities safer. It also reduces criminal justice and prison costs and offers young people an early offramp from criminal offending and an onramp toward a productive and safe life. This is a win for all of us.

Read Dr. Robert Kinscherff’s full Letter to the Editor here.

New research supports a new approach to dealing with ‘emerging adults.’

By The Editorial Board, May 25, 2023, 4:00 a.m.

Facts are indeed stubborn things. And the facts produced in study after study support the notion that throwing youthful offenders — those 18 to 21 — into an adult prison system is counterproductive.

It vastly increases the likelihood they’ll end up back in prison, harms their “physical and mental health, impedes their educational and career success, and often exposes them to abuse,” according to a recent national study by The Sentencing Project.

“And the use of confinement is plagued by severe racial and ethnic disparities,” the study also noted — a data point that holds up for Massachusetts as well.

Meanwhile, evolving research on the late adolescent brain (defined as ages 18 to 21) has told us a great deal that many involved in the administration of justice (not to mention parents) know intuitively — that the age group is prone to risk taking, peer pressure, and “more sensation-seeking behavior” than those over 21.

The research cries out for us as a society to look at how those late adolescents are treated within the state’s criminal justice system and whether it’s time to do things differently — to keep most of those “emerging adults” out of adult prisons.

In 2013, the state raised the age for juvenile jurisdiction from 17 to 18, thus keeping 17-year-olds in the juvenile system. An attempt in 2018 to increase the age of “criminal majority” to 19 as part of a sweeping criminal justice reform act caused such a brouhaha that it was dropped and left to a task force for further study.

This year state Senate President Karen Spilka told the Globe editorial board raising the age limit was on her priority list.

“It’s a matter Massachusetts could lead the way on and really make a difference in young lives,” she said.

“Some of the sheriffs are doing great programming” for youthful offenders, she added, “but they still end up with [adult criminal] records. This is an important thing in terms of our justice system.”

In fact, as if to show the seriousness of her intentions, this year the Senate president swapped out the Senate Reimagining Massachusetts Committee for a new Juvenile and Emerging Adult Justice Committee under the leadership of state Senator Brendan Crighton of Lynn.

State Representative Jim O’Day is leading the effort on the House side with a bill that would keep 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds in the juvenile system — raising the age gradually over the next five years. (That would not change the rules for those accused of murder, who can be tried as adults beginning at age 14.)

The Department of Youth Services currently can hold those sentenced as juveniles for certain serious crimes until age 21 and likely wouldn’t need much in the way of ramp-up time to accommodate a new cohort of youthful offenders, particularly if the age limit is raised gradually.

And by all accounts, DYS has done a good job of keeping those youthful offenders assigned to its care from coming back into the criminal justice system.

“Since raising the age in 2013 to include 17-year-olds, Massachusetts has seen a reduction in juvenile crime, a decrease in [the] number of cases arraigned and a decrease in new commitments to DYS (through 2022),” according to a report by Citizens for Juvenile Justice.

The results for those committed have also been impressive. The reconviction rate for those committed to DYS facilities was 26 percent, compared to 55 percent for late adolescents in the adult system. And yet the crimes for the two groups were remarkably similar, the study found — largely misdemeanors like simple assault, disorderly conduct, shoplifting, and alcohol-related offenses.

Sure, there are other ways of dealing with youthful offenders. Late last month Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden announced a pilot pretrial diversion program to begin this summer for 18- to 25-year-olds out of Dorchester District Court.

“The goal is always to keep kids out of the system and give them the opportunity to succeed,” Hayden said in introducing the program.

A “pre-arraignment” program aimed at first-time offenders or those with “limited” criminal histories could result in a clean slate for those who successfully complete the program. A parallel presentencing diversion program would also include the possibility of ultimate dismissal of a case.

And the program could be expanded to other courts in the county, Hayden indicated.

But a systemic approach, like the “Raise the Age” bill, is the best way to help level the playing field statewide and help address the racial disparities endemic in the current system where Black and Latino young adults are 3.2 and 1.7 times as likely to be imprisoned as their white counterparts.

Raising the age for juvenile defendants is one of those bits of unfinished business from a trailblazing piece of legislation now five years into its implementation. Today, given the state of scientific research on developing brains, the case is even stronger to keep young adults out of a prison system ill-equipped to provide the education and the rehabilitation they need. Today it’s time to try something different, something better.

Read the full Boston Globe article here.