Mississippi College School of Law
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In Honor of Judge Leslie H. Southwick\u27s 10th Anniversary on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals
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What\u27s Love Got to do With It? Davis v. Henderson and a Proposed Revision to Mississippi\u27s Termination of Child Support Standard
No full textThe Federal Judiciary\u27s Double Standard: How the FSIA Deters Plaintiffs in Their Search for Justice
No full textAt-Will Employment and Healthcare: A Constant Conflict
Full text linkPerfection is impossible. Perfection is essentially possible in the healthcare field, where adverse events are a part of the profession. For this reason, the government has developed systems that attempt to curb the inevitable issues that will arise; however, those systems do not always catch the shortcomings of healthcare-providing institutions. For this reason, the non-physician employees on the ground level, interacting with the patients on a daily basis, are often the best source of information when targeting and curing a healthcare organization’s shortfalls. Unfortunately, barriers exist that keep those non-physician employees from bringing to light what they have noticed
De-Facto-Life and the Rare Juvenile
Full text linkWe have all been young once. We all remember doing stupid things with our friends growing up. Now imagine if one of those decisions caused you to be thrown into prison for the rest of your life. Despite the United States Supreme Court[s decisions that sentencing juveniles to life in most cases is unconstitutional, lower courts are still giving juveniles de-facto-life sentences.
The United States Supreme Court has recognized that children are different from adults in several recent cases. In 2005, Roper v. Simmons, the Court held that it is unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile to death. More pertinent to this paper, the Court said in 2010 in Graham v. Florida and in 2012 in Miller v. Alabama that it is unconstitutional to mandatorily sentence a juvenile to life without parole without considering mitigating factors, such as how children are different from adults. Then in 2016 in Montgomery v. Louisiana, the Court said sentencing authorities must consider not only the factors in Miller, but can only sentence the juvenile to life without parole after consideration of whether the juvenile is the rare juvenile whose crime reflects irreparable corruption. The Court deemed that life without parole did not provide juveniles with a meaningful opportunity for release. De-facto-life sentences are sentences that exceed the defendant\u27s life expectancy. Exceeding life expectancy and for life both mean that a juvenile will never have a meaningful opportunity to return to society; thus, the sentences are the same.
De-facto-life sentences, like life without parole sentences, go against the parens patriae and earlier philosophies of the juvenile court, which focused on helping children rather than punishing them. These sentences also go against the idea that children are different from adults by giving them an adult sentence. Because de-facto-life sentences are essentially life without parole sentences, Graham and Miller should apply and also make de-facto-life sentences unconstitutional
