Federal Judge Strikes Down Mandatory Cigarette Health Warning Labels

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This week a federal judge ruled in favor of tobacco companies challenging a FDA requirement that would force cigarette manufacturers to place graphic warning labels on their products. “The government has failed to carry both its burden of demonstrating a compelling interest and its burden of demonstrating that the rule is narrowly tailored to achieve a constitutionally permissible form of compelled commercial speech," U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said. The ruling stems from a 2009 law passed by Congress that required the FDA to enforce new warning requirements, which included manufacturers placing color labels on their products which covered at least half of the packaging space, as well as on 20 percent of print advertisements for cigarettes. Last summer, the FDA unveiled nine warning labels – among them, photographs of charred lungs and corpses – that were expected to be placed on all cigarette packages in the United States by September 2012. Last year, Judge Leon allowed a preliminary injunction which prevented the mandatory warnings from being placed on tobacco products, a decision challenged by the Obama administration and currently awaiting a U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruling.

Effort at Parental Rights Amendment in Georgia Stalls

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Georgia parents could no longer put their children in time-outs or impose other discipline if the U.S. Senate ratifies an international treaty on children's rights. Or so says state Rep. Jay Neal (R-LaFayette) and other backers of a proposed Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Neal asked state House colleagues Tuesday to call on Congress to back a constitutional amendment declaring that parents -- not the government -- have the right to direct their children's upbringing and education. But the clock ran out during a time-shortened meeting of the House Children and Youth Committee, and Neal's resolution was tabled, quite possibly killing it for this year's legislative session. The motion to table passed on a 9-7 vote.

ga state house square

Funding for New Youth Detention Center in Georgia Moving Through Legislature

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Georgia state Senate budget writers signed off Tuesday on $3.35 million in immediate funding to open and staff a youth prison in south Fulton County. The new 80-bed Atlanta Youth Development Campus, the first in North Georgia, could open as soon as April, helping to ease pressures at the state's six other prisons for juveniles. Several of those facilities saw violent disturbances in 2011, culminating in November in the beating death of a 19-year-old in his cell at the Augusta YDC. Plans call for housing youths from metro Atlanta in the new YDC, DJJ spokesman Jim Shuler said. The department is not currently considering Juvenile Justice Commissioner Gale Buckner's suggestion, reported last month, to transfer the instigators of disturbances at the other facilities to the Atlanta YDC, he said.

New York’s Highest Ranking Judge Urges Changes to State’s Juvenile Justice System

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Tuesday, Chief Judge of the State of New York Jonathan Lippman presented several proposals to the state Legislature during his annual State of the Judiciary address, including the creation of a new juvenile court to handle cases involving 16-and17-year-olds tried for nonviolent offenses.  Currently, New York is one of only two states in the nation, along with North Carolina, that automatically tries 16-and 17-year-old offenders as adults. According to Judge Lippman, the state’s legislation, “flies in the face of what science tells us about adolescent development.”

Judge Lippman’s proposal would allow judges in adult-offender courts to serve as Family Court judges in cases involving nonviolent 16-and 17-year-olds offenders. Juveniles found guilty in such instances would be subject to Family Court judgments, which generally mete out less harsh adjudications, frequently substituting treatment services for incarceration. Additionally, cases under the arrangement would be sealed, and defendants would not incur a criminal record pending a guilty verdict.

Weighing the Cost of School Suspensions in Massachusetts

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The New England Center for Investigative Reporting recently reported findings detailing disciplinary trends within the public education system of Massachusetts. According to the analysis, almost 200,000 school days were lost to out-of-school and in-school suspensions and expulsions during the 2009-2010 school year. The organization said that days lost to suspension or expulsions during the timeframe were equal to about 10 percent of the 172 million school days accumulated by the state’s nearly 1 million public school students. The analysis reports that while the Boston school system is more likely to expel students permanently, the Worchester school system ultimately totaled up more lost school days due to disciplinary actions, with approximately 5,000 lost school days compared to the capital city’s estimated 2,765. The analysis also found that more than 2,000 students, some as young as age 4, were suspended from the state’s early elementary programs, which entails pre-kindergarten to third grade classes.

At Symposium, Experts and Advocates Hope to Reform the Criminal Justice System

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NEW YORK - On Monday, the first day of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Symposium on Crime in America, held at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, a standing-room-only crowd of criminal justice experts, academics, advocates and journalists spilled out of the small conference room and into the large, modern glass and metal entry hall. They were there to discuss how to fix the United States’ rapidly growing prison population, among other problems.

The conference, titled “The Problem That Won’t Go Away: How drugs, race and mass incarceration have distorted American justice (and what to do about it)," featured six panels over two days tackling areas of the criminal justice system that, the panelists say, are ripe for reform and critically important. But the two subjects discussed most were drugs and prisons. Panels Monday included “America’s Addictions,” "Gangs, Drugs and Urban Violence” and “Crime and Criminal Justice Trends 2011-2012.”

Within the juvenile justice field, Dr. Jeffrey Butts, Director of the John Jay Center on Research and Evaluation said there was some good news. “National trends in youth crime show that juvenile arrests are down since the 90s,” he said.

New Mexico Governor Seeking Harsher Sentences For Child Abusers and Predators

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New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez announced several legislative proposals last month, which aim to alter the state’s Criminal Code in order to extend sentences for child abusers and predators. The legislation would triple jail time for first-time child abuse offenders, increasing sentences from three to nine years. The legislation would also double the sentences for repeat offenders, with second-time offenders potentially serving 18 years in prison as opposed to just nine. Gov. Martinez, a Republican, also wishes to extend New Mexico’s “Baby Brianna” law, which currently imposes a mandatory life sentence for anyone convicted of killing under 12, with the proposed legislation levying life sentences for those found guilty of killing anyone under the age of 18 within the state. The bill, introduced by state Rep. Al Park (D-Albuquerque) and state Senator Gay Kerman (R-Hobbs), would also stiffen penalties for drunk drivers responsible for accidents that result in the death or injury of children.

Florida Symposium Focuses on Legal Representation for Abused and Neglected Children

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In Florida, a two-day symposium will bring together leading national advocates and experts to discuss the legal representation of abused and neglected children. Organizers of the symposium, sponsored by the American Bar Association, say there is an urgent need to raise public awareness that abused children need to have lawyers protecting them in all court proceedings. The program begins with a media briefing Thursday, Feb. 9 followed by a symposium Friday, Feb. 10.

Redefining Mental Disorders Could Have Implications for Treatment, Insurance, Education

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When the American Psychiatric Association (APA) announced tentative plans to officially redefine a number of autism spectrum disorders, the controversial news was met with both praise and criticism by many mental health professionals, educators and parents across the United States. Under the proposed changes, the criteria for diagnosing autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) would be much stricter, with clients needing to display at least seven out of nine symptoms outlined in the fifth edition of the APA’s guide on disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). Currently, clients need to display at least eight out of fourteen symptoms detailed in the DSM-IV to warrant an autism disorder diagnosis. The changes could prove crucial to the estimated 1.5 million children and adults in the United States affected by autism spectrum disorders, as the DSM is often used as a guideline to establish treatment, insurance coverage and access to healthcare and special education services. Additionally, the DSM-V proposals would re-categorize autism spectrum disorders into three levels based on the severity of the individual’s social communication deficits and tendencies to engage in restrictive interests and/or repetitive behaviors.

Teaching the Teachers How to Fight Sex Trafficking

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Teachers can be the first line of defense against child sex trafficking, according to Maria Velikonja, a former FBI agent who has worked on human trafficking issues for the United Nations. During a two-day conference on sex trafficking at Georgia State University, in Atlanta, Velikonja spoke about the warning signs educators should watch for in their students and what teachers can do to keep their students safe. The conference, Not in Georgia: Combating Human Sex Trafficking, organized by the Georgia Department of Education, was the third part of an ongoing series of lectures on the sex trade. In a lecture titled, “Combating Human Sex Trafficking in Georgia: What Public School Educators Can Do,” Velikonja began by outlining some of the basics of sex trafficking for teachers. “What does a potential sex trafficking victim look like?” she asked the small crowd.