@article{ref1,
title="Judicial responses to age and other mitigating evidence: an exploratory case study of juvenile life sentences in pre-Miller cases",
journal="Journal of criminal law and criminology",
year="2022",
author="Ashford, José and Puzauskas, Katherine and Dormady, Robert",
volume="112",
number="3",
pages="593-629",
abstract="This study describes how judges in Maricopa County, Arizona responded to age and other mitigation evidence in imposing &quot;life&quot; versus &quot;natural life&quot; sentences for juvenile offenders convicted of homicide in pre-Miller cases. Maricopa County was selected for this case study because of its history of adhering to &quot;restrictive interpretations&quot; of various kinds of mitigation evidence and because of the characteristics of this county's local court community. The study employed a mixed-methods design consisting of a content analysis of relevant case documents and a quantitative analysis of the findings from the qualitative analyses of legal case documents. It examined 82% of the juveniles given natural life sentences and 72% of the juveniles given a sentence of life (25-to-life) in Maricopa County. The findings of this study indicated that judges referenced age as a statutory mitigating factor in 17% of both &quot;life&quot; and &quot;natural life&quot; cases, and age as a reason for the sentences imposed in 46% of both &quot;life&quot; and &quot;natural life&quot; cases. However, the age-relevant and other mitigating reasons referenced by judges lacked statistically significant associations with the sentences that the judges imposed. The only judicial reason with a statistically significant association with the imposed sentences was &quot;emotional impact of the crime on the victim's family.&quot; The implications of this and other findings for &quot;full responsibility&quot; and &quot;mitigation&quot; approaches for blaming juvenile lifers were discussed, as well as the need for future research on post-Miller sentencing and resentencing processes.   José B. Ashford, Katherine Puzauskas, and Robert Dormady, Judicial Responses to Age and Other Mitigating Evidence: An Exploratory Case Study of Juvenile Life Sentences in Pre-Miller Cases, 112 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 593 (2022).   https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclc/vol112/iss3/3  Keywords: Juvenile justice <p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0091-4169",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}