Friday, February 5, 2016

An Introduction and an Evolution



 My name is Rachel Kuntz, and I’m a senior at BASIS Flagstaff. My blog and research project are currently named “The Status of Juvenile Conviction as Adults in Arizona,” but that may be a misleading title at this point, since my project has drastically evolved since it started.
Several months ago I reached out to Arizona Innocence Project, an organization that provides representation for incarcerated people who claim to have been falsely convicted. AIP seeks to free these innocent people.
When I met with Colleen Maring, she informed me that the project had only a small handful of people claiming innocence who had been convicted as adults when they were juveniles, and she wanted to know why. Are juveniles in Arizona simply not at a high risk of being falsely convicted as adults in Arizona? And if they were, how could AIP reach out to this group?
I explored the first question in a literature review, where I looked the current Arizona and Federal law regarding trying juveniles as adults, and scientific articles that suggested juveniles may be at higher risk of false conviction. Studies involving false confession and juvenile impulse control suggested that yes, juveniles are more likely to confess to crimes they did not commit, and may be more likely to be falsely convicted. One study also showed that juveniles convicted as adults may receive harsher sentences than their young adult counterparts. As far as the law, Arizona legislation changed in 2010, setting much stricter standards for trying juveniles as adults. However, juveniles convicted before the change in legislation still may be at risk, and therefore still a group that could need AIP’s services.
The second question, however, became irrelevant recently because AIP will no longer be at NAU after this semester, and exploring an outreach program for this group would no longer be helpful or implementable. So, with this change happening at the start of my internship, it is hard to tell the exact direction in which my project will be progressing.
But Colleen Maring is currently working on an appellate case that will be the bulk of her focus for the month of February. I’ve been given the information for this case and slowly but surely been reading the hundreds of pages of transcripts and motions. This case is particularly interesting because I have absolutely no experience with appellate court cases. In my experience working for a criminal defense attorney and participating in Mock Trial, I feel fairly familiar with trial lawyering, and I’m interested to see how it compares to the appellate process. Overall I’m excited to enter into this process and see the changes in my research project. I am thrilled to be involved in this case and other appellate cases and to learn about this system.

8 comments:

  1. Hi Rachel. Good start! Let's change the title to reflect your new project. The title to the first post is great though. Now it's really about the implications of the closing of AIP on Arizona inmates.

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  2. Hi Rachel. Good start! Let's change the title to reflect your new project. The title to the first post is great though. Now it's really about the implications of the closing of AIP on Arizona inmates.

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  3. Hey Rachel, this project sounds like it's headed in a great direction! What's the appellate case about?

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  4. Hi Liam! My next blog post should go more into the details of the case. For confidentiality reasons, I can't disclose specifics without the consent of Ms. Maring, but please check out my next post to hear more about it!

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  5. Hey, Rachel! Wait, so the juveniles part of AIP don't often claim innocence, but the articles you read suggest juveniles are at a higher risk of false conviction? That's interesting. You said juveniles often confess to crimes they did not commit. Why could that be, exactly? Also, how was the study able to find this out? How would they know the juvenile actually didn't commit the crime? Also, why would a juvenile be convicted as an adult? What does that mean for the juvenile? Is convicting juveniles as adults not supported but still allowed? Thanks! :)

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    1. Juveniles are more likely to falsely confess because they seem to be more willing to comply with authority (such as the police officers interrogating them). They also are more likely to internalize and confabulate than adults, which is a thing that happens when evidence is presented against someone (even if it's false evidence) and the person starts to believe they committed the crime, and even makes up details in their mind that confirm they did it. If you'd like to read more about internalization and confabulation, The Social Psychology of False Confessions, Compliance, Internalization, and Confabulation is the article I referred to mostly. Each state has different laws for convicting juveniles as adults, but most tend to do so for violent crimes or repeated criminal behavior. When a juvenile is convicted as an adult, they lose a lot of protections, such as their ability to expunge their record when they turn 18. They also are kept in adult prisons, putting them at higher risk for assault from adult inmates. Convicting juveniles adults is actually supported more than you might think, because the juveniles who are tried this way typically have violent histories, which is used to justify their mistreatment in adult prisons. However, groups like Equal Justice Initiative are fighting to change this mentality and the conditions it creates.

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  6. Why is AIP closing? This is so sad and affirms some things I've read about higher education. Organizations, such as that one, are what money should be used for. Can Ms. Maring do anything about the closing?

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    1. I don't know all the details of the closing, all I know is that it is due to lack of funding. Organizations such as AIP, though very important, are also very expensive for universities to keep open. It is made even more difficult since NAU doesn't have a law school, which could provide necessary resources. Fortunately, Arizona still has other organizations such as Arizona Justice Project (which is closely linked to AIP and takes cases where constitutional rights have been violated as well as innocence cases) as well as a clinic at University of Arizona.

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