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Searching for a Meaning: The Enigmatic Interpretation of Virginia’s Statutory Ban on Warrantless Searches

The modern U.S. Supreme Court tells us that the touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is reasonableness. That proposition flows logically enough from the Amendment’s text and helps explain why there are so many situations in which law enforcement does not need to obtain a warrant before conducting a Fourth Amendment search. Individuals in Virginia, however, are protected not only by the Fourth Amendment but also under state law. And Section 19.2-59 of the Code of Virginia contains a ban on searches without a warrant, subject only to exceptions in the enforcement of game and marine fisheries laws—rather, that is what Section 19.2-59 seems to say it contains. In practice, the Supreme Court of Virginia has for decades interpreted the statute to provide the same protections as the Fourth Amendment, despite the stark differences between the two texts.

This Note’s first contribution is to explore that discrepancy. It documents how Section 19.2-59 was first passed during the Prohibition Era as part of a backlash to overly intrusive searches by law enforcement agents. It reveals that the Supreme Court of Virginia was originally willing to credit the statute’s plain meaning and interpret it as offering broader protections against unreasonable searches than the common law. In the middle of the twentieth century, however, the court began to misread those early cases, leading to the current understanding of the law that is divorced from its plain meaning. The history of Section 19.2-59 thus raises difficult questions of statutory interpretation. This Note’s second contribution is to identify those questions and begin articulating what the contemporary meaning of Section 19.2-59 should be.

Introduction

“Because we can only administer the law as it is written, the interpretative principle that precedes all others is that ‘courts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says . . .’.”1 1.Appalachian Power Co. v. State Corp. Comm’n, 876 S.E.2d 349, 358 (Va. 2022) (internal quotation marks omitted) (first quoting Coalter v. Bargamin, 37 S.E. 779, 781 (Va. 1901); and then quoting Arlington Cent. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Murphy, 548 U.S. 291, 296 (2006)).Show More

Kenneth Wilson was pulled over as he drove through Chesterfield County, Virginia, on the evening of March 29, 2019.2 2.Wilson v. Painter, No. 3:20cv645, 2020 WL 7497801, at *1 (E.D. Va. Dec. 21, 2020).Show More The officer who commenced the stop did not initially give any reason for doing so. But after running Wilson’s license and registration, he ordered Wilson to step out of his car.3 3.Id. at *2.Show More Wilson responded by asking why he had been pulled over. The officer told Wilson that his headlight was out and opened the driver-side door. Wilson remained seated. The officer quickly repeated the order three more times, but Wilson did not budge. Then, without warning, the officer punched Wilson in the face and yanked him out of the car.4 4.Id.Show More

Once Wilson was restrained, the officer informed him that he had ordered Wilson to exit the vehicle due to the smell of marijuana.5 5.Id.Show More Wilson was patted down and escorted away. The officer then searched his car and found marijuana. In subsequent criminal proceedings, the Chesterfield County General District Court ordered that the drugs be suppressed.6 6.Id.Show More

Wilson sued the officer under both federal and state law seeking half a million dollars in compensatory and punitive damages. In considering the officer’s motion to dismiss, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia noted that one of the state law claims was for “unlawful search in violation of Virginia Code § 19.2-59.”7 7.Id.Show More The court did not take long to resolve the claim, simply noting that it “rel[ies] on the absence of probable cause” and citing to a 1968 Supreme Court of Virginia case in support of the proposition.8 8.Id. at *8 (citing Carter v. Commonwealth, 163 S.E.2d 589, 592 (Va. 1968)).Show More In Wilson’s case, the court reasoned, the smell of marijuana gave the officer probable cause that there was contraband in the vehicle. The Section 19.2-59 claim was accordingly dismissed.9 9.Id. at *8–9. Wilson did not challenge the court’s dismissal of the § 19.2-59 claim on appeal. Wilson v. Painter, No. 21-1083, 2021 WL 5851070, at *1 n.1 (4th Cir. Dec. 9, 2021) (per curiam).Show More

At first glance, the decision appears unremarkable. Yet it is notable for what the court did not do: consider the text of Section 19.2-59 of the Code of Virginia. If it had, the court would have needed to concede that the provision says nothing about probable cause. Instead, Section 19.2-59 seems to plainly prohibit the type of warrantless search that Wilson’s car was subject to. The statute starts with a simple command:

No officer of the law or any other person shall search any place, thing or person, except by virtue of and under a warrant issued by a proper officer.10 10.Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-59 (2022). The rest of the statute reads:Any officer or other person searching any place, thing or person otherwise than by virtue of and under a search warrant, shall be guilty of malfeasance in office. Any officer or person violating the provisions of this section shall be liable to any person aggrieved thereby in both compensatory and punitive damages. Any officer found guilty of a second offense under this section shall, upon conviction thereof, immediately forfeit his office, and such finding shall be deemed to create a vacancy in such office to be filled according to law.Provided, however, that any officer empowered to enforce the game laws or marine fisheries laws as set forth in Title 28.2 may without a search warrant enter for the purpose of enforcing such laws, any freight yard or room, passenger depot, baggage room or warehouse, storage room or warehouse, train, baggage car, passenger car, express car, Pullman car or freight car of any common carrier, or any boat, automobile or other vehicle; but nothing in this proviso contained shall be construed to permit a search of any occupied berth or compartment on any passenger car or boat or any baggage, bag, trunk, box or other closed container without a search warrant.Id.Show More

That general prohibition is subject to an exception allowing for the warrantless searches of vehicles—but only when such searches are carried out in the enforcement of Virginia’s game or marine fisheries laws.11 11.Id.Show More The limited exception seems to further Wilson’s case, giving rise to a negative inference that warrantless automobile searches in all other contexts are prohibited.12 12.See Miller & Rhoads Bldg., L.L.C. v. City of Richmond, 790 S.E.2d 484, 487 (Va. 2016) (“In interpreting statutory language, we have consistently applied the time-honored principle expressiouniusestexclusioalterius . . . . Under this maxim, when a legislative enactment limits the manner in which something may be done, the enactment also evinces the intent that it shall not be done another way.” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)).Show More

The perfunctory treatment Section 19.2-59 received in Kenneth Wilson’s case is not unusual. In fact, Section 19.2-59 and its seemingly near-total ban on warrantless searches have gone almost entirely overlooked both in practice and in the literature. In practice, the statute is interpreted to offer the same protections as the Fourth Amendment,13 13.The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.U.S. Const. amend. IV.Show More despite the fact that the Amendment allows for a large portion of law enforcement searches to occur without a warrant.14 14.See 2 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 4.1(b) (6th ed. 2020) (providing an overview of the instances in which police are permitted to conduct a search without a warrant under the Fourth Amendment, including the exigent circumstances exception, the automobile exception, consent searches, inventory searches, and searches incident to arrest); Ronald Jay Allen, Joseph L. Hoffmann, Debra A. Livingston, Andrew D. Leipold & Tracey L. Meares, Criminal Procedure: Investigation and Right to Counsel 435, 467 (4th ed. 2020) (“Taken individually, these exceptions may seem narrow enough. Cumulatively, the exceptions may be the rule—and warrants the real exception.”).Show More Section 19.2-59 is also understood to create a cause of action against law enforcement officers akin to that found in 42 U.S.C. § 1983.15 15.See infra Subsection I.B.2.Show More In the literature, the statute’s origins, development, and interpretation by courts have never been explored.16 16.A review of the secondary sources citing § 19.2-59 on Westlaw and Lexis+ reveals a smattering of treatises and journal articles that mention the statute. That literature has given only cursory consideration to the law. See, e.g., Robert S. Claiborne, Jr., Comment, Commonwealth and Constitution, 48 U. Rich. L. Rev. 415, 423, 423 n.38 (2013) (calling it “troubling” that § 19.2-59 “does not plainly impose the same Fourth Amendment requirements, but Virginia courts have construed [it] to do so”); John L. Costello, Virginia Criminal Law and Procedure § 35.6 (4th ed. 2008) (“This statute was enacted in response to public outcry during the Prohibition Era and has been consistently held to be coextensive with the Fourth Amendment . . . .”).Show More

This Note seeks to change that. Part I summarizes the current state of the law on illegal searches in Virginia under the Fourth Amendment, Section 10 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights,17 17.Section 10 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights is the search-and-seizure provision in the Virginia Constitution. It reads:That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.Va. Const. art. I, § 10.Show More and Section 19.2-59. Part II explores the history of Section 19.2-59.18 18.Although § 19.2-59 did not obtain its current place in the Code of Virginia until 1975, see Act of Mar. 22, 1975, ch. 495, 1975 Va. Acts 846, 856–57, this Note refers to earlier versions of the provision as “Section 19.2-59” for clarity.Show More It reveals the statute was originally enacted in 1920 as part of a larger bill meant to rein in the searches of state prohibition officers. Although the statute has been amended several times since, much of its substance remains the same as it was in 1920. Part III first analyzes how the Supreme Court of Virginia19 19.The modern-day Supreme Court of Virginia was known as the “Supreme Court of Appeals” until 1970. 2 A.E. Dick Howard, Commentaries on the Constitution of Virginia 704 (1974). For clarity, this Note refers to the court by its current name when referencing decisions of the pre-1970 court.Show More interpreted Section 19.2-59 in the years immediately following its enactment. It then documents how, in the latter half of the century, the court misread those earlier cases, leading to the current application of the statute that departs not only from its text, but also from how it was originally understood by courts. Finally, Part IV makes a preliminary attempt at answering several questions raised by the analysis in Parts II and III.

  1. Appalachian Power Co. v. State Corp. Comm’n, 876 S.E.2d 349, 358 (Va. 2022) (internal quotation marks omitted) (first quoting Coalter v. Bargamin, 37 S.E. 779, 781 (Va. 1901); and then quoting Arlington Cent. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Murphy, 548 U.S. 291, 296 (2006)). ↑
  2. Wilson v. Painter, No. 3:20cv645, 2020 WL 7497801, at *1 (E.D. Va. Dec. 21, 2020). ↑
  3. Id. at *2. ↑
  4. Id. ↑
  5. Id. ↑
  6. Id. ↑
  7. Id. ↑
  8. Id. at *8 (citing Carter v. Commonwealth, 163 S.E.2d 589, 592 (Va. 1968)). ↑
  9. Id. at *8–9. Wilson did not challenge the court’s dismissal of the § 19.2-59 claim on appeal. Wilson v. Painter, No. 21-1083, 2021 WL 5851070, at *1 n.1 (4th Cir. Dec. 9, 2021) (per curiam). ↑
  10. Va. Code Ann. § 19.2-59 (2022). The rest of the statute reads:Any officer or other person searching any place, thing or person otherwise than by virtue of and under a search warrant, shall be guilty of malfeasance in office. Any officer or person violating the provisions of this section shall be liable to any person aggrieved thereby in both compensatory and punitive damages. Any officer found guilty of a second offense under this section shall, upon conviction thereof, immediately forfeit his office, and such finding shall be deemed to create a vacancy in such office to be filled according to law.Provided, however, that any officer empowered to enforce the game laws or marine fisheries laws as set forth in Title 28.2 may without a search warrant enter for the purpose of enforcing such laws, any freight yard or room, passenger depot, baggage room or warehouse, storage room or warehouse, train, baggage car, passenger car, express car, Pullman car or freight car of any common carrier, or any boat, automobile or other vehicle; but nothing in this proviso contained shall be construed to permit a search of any occupied berth or compartment on any passenger car or boat or any baggage, bag, trunk, box or other closed container without a search warrant.

    Id. ↑

  11. Id. ↑
  12. See Miller & Rhoads Bldg., L.L.C. v. City of Richmond, 790 S.E.2d 484, 487 (Va. 2016) (“In interpreting statutory language, we have consistently applied the time-honored principle expressio unius est exclusio alterius . . . . Under this maxim, when a legislative enactment limits the manner in which something may be done, the enactment also evinces the intent that it shall not be done another way.” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)). ↑
  13. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads:The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.U.S. Const. amend. IV. ↑
  14. See 2 Wayne R. LaFave, Search and Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 4.1(b) (6th ed. 2020) (providing an overview of the instances in which police are permitted to conduct a search without a warrant under the Fourth Amendment, including the exigent circumstances exception, the automobile exception, consent searches, inventory searches, and searches incident to arrest); Ronald Jay Allen, Joseph L. Hoffmann, Debra A. Livingston, Andrew D. Leipold & Tracey L. Meares, Criminal Procedure: Investigation and Right to Counsel 435, 467 (4th ed. 2020) (“Taken individually, these exceptions may seem narrow enough. Cumulatively, the exceptions may be the rule—and warrants the real exception.”). ↑
  15. See infra Subsection I.B.2. ↑
  16.  A review of the secondary sources citing § 19.2-59 on Westlaw and Lexis+ reveals a smattering of treatises and journal articles that mention the statute. That literature has given only cursory consideration to the law. See, e.g., Robert S. Claiborne, Jr., Comment, Commonwealth and Constitution, 48 U. Rich. L. Rev. 415, 423, 423 n.38 (2013) (calling it “troubling” that § 19.2-59 “does not plainly impose the same Fourth Amendment requirements, but Virginia courts have construed [it] to do so”); John L. Costello, Virginia Criminal Law and Procedure § 35.6 (4th ed. 2008) (“This statute was enacted in response to public outcry during the Prohibition Era and has been consistently held to be coextensive with the Fourth Amendment . . . .”). ↑
  17. Section 10 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights is the search-and-seizure provision in the Virginia Constitution. It reads:That general warrants, whereby an officer or messenger may be commanded to search suspected places without evidence of a fact committed, or to seize any person or persons not named, or whose offense is not particularly described and supported by evidence, are grievous and oppressive, and ought not to be granted.Va. Const. art. I, § 10. ↑
  18. Although § 19.2-59 did not obtain its current place in the Code of Virginia until 1975, see Act of Mar. 22, 1975, ch. 495, 1975 Va. Acts 846, 856–57, this Note refers to earlier versions of the provision as “Section 19.2-59” for clarity. ↑

  19. The modern-day Supreme Court of Virginia was known as the “Supreme Court of Appeals” until 1970. 2 A.E. Dick Howard, Commentaries on the Constitution of Virginia 704 (1974). For clarity, this Note refers to the court by its current name when referencing decisions of the pre-1970 court. ↑

Criminal Violations

Violations of community supervision are major drivers of incarceration. Nearly four million people in the United States are serving terms of probation, parole, or supervised release, and one-third of them are eventually found in violation of a condition of their supervision, sending 350,000 people to prison each year. To reduce incarceration rates, criminal justice reformers have called for lower sentences for non-criminal “technical violations,” such as missed meetings, skipped curfews, etc.

In this Article, I offer the first comprehensive analysis of “criminal violations,” the other half of cases where people violate their supervision by committing new crimes. Based on an original empirical study of U.S. Sentencing Commission data and an examination of federal case law, I make three novel observations. First, despite the popular focus on technical violations, criminal violations are the primary drivers of punishment via revocation of supervised release, accounting for at least two-thirds of the total prison time imposed. Second, while technical violations punish non-criminal behavior, criminal violations drive punishment by increasing sentences for criminal convictions and making punishing crimes easier. Third, the immigration crime of illegal reentry accounts for as many as one-third of all revocations for felony violations, revealing that supervised release is no longer just a program of surveillance or support but also has become a tool of immigration enforcement.

Finally, after describing revocations for criminal violations in the federal criminal justice system, I argue that punishing criminal violations inflicts unfair double punishment and erodes constitutional rights. When defendants on supervised release commit new crimes, the better and fairer response is to prosecute them without revoking their supervision. The law of revocation opens an exception to the ordinary rules of criminal prosecution, which the federal government has generalized into a powerful engine of imprisonment.

Introduction

Violations of community supervision are major drivers of incarceration.1 1.Cf. Press Release, Phila. Dist. Att’y’s Off., New Philadelphia D.A.O. Policies Announced Mar. 21, 2019 to End Mass Supervision (Mar. 21, 2019), https://medium.com/philadelphia-justice/philadelphia-daos-policies-to-end-mass-supervision-fd5988cfe1f1 [https://perma.cc/7​M3F-2U24] (“Mass supervision is a major driver of mass incarceration.”).Show More Almost four million people in the United States are on probation, parole, or supervised release.2 2.Danielle Kaeble, U.S. Dep’t of Just., Probation and Parole in the U.S., 2020, at 1 (2021), https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ppus20.pdf [https://perma.cc/9RRN-7TVM].Show More One-third of them are eventually found in violation of their supervision, sending 350,000 people to prison each year and accounting for 45% of state prison admissions and 25% of the nation’s prison population.3 3.Adam Gelb, Juliene James, Amy Solomon & Brian Elderbroom, The PEW Charitable Trs., Probation and Parole Systems Marked by High Stakes, Missed Opportunities 9 (2018), https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2018/09/probation_and_parole_systems_marked_​by_high_stakes_missed_opportunities_pew.pdf [https://perma.cc/F4G4-AC2Z]; Council of State Gov’t Just. Ctr., Confined and Costly: How Supervision Violations Are Filling Prisons and Burdening Budgets (2019), https://csgjusticecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/co​nfined-and-costly.pdf [https://perma.cc/QVS2-NN4L].Show More A coalition of probation and parole officials recently warned that “mass supervision” was contributing to “mass incarceration,” because, “[f]ar from being an aid to community reintegration as originally designed, community supervision too often serves as a tripwire to imprisonment, creating a vicious cycle of reincarceration.”4 4.See Statement on the Future of Probation & Parole in the United States, EXiT: Execs. Transforming Prob. & Parole (Nov. 13, 2020), https://www.exitprobationparole.org/statement [https://perma.cc/D2NF-5YJV].Show More

To reduce incarceration rates, criminal justice reformers have called for lower sentences for non-criminal “technical violations” like missing meetings with the probation officer, skipping curfew, or filing late paperwork.5 5.See Alex Roth, Sandhya Kajeepeta & Alex Boldin, Vera Inst. of Just., The Perils of Probation: How Supervision Contributes to Jail Populations 29 (2021), https://www.ve​ra.org/downloads/publications/the-perils-of-probation.pdf [https://perma.cc/T9H8-YG5D] (advocating for “eliminating incarceration for technical violations”); Reagan Daly, Mackenzie Deary, Victoria Lawson & Pavithra Nagarajan, CUNY Inst. for State & Loc. Governance, Pathways to Success on Probation: Lessons Learned from the First Phase of the Reducing Revocations Challenge 30–31 (2021), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5fcea962a1b4d​771ad256fcc/t/61707b8a29d1471381fbcce8/1634761610960/10192021+Reducing+Revocations+v4.pdf [https://perma.cc/K9X3-QB8F] (recommending “limit[ing] the circumstances under which formal technical violations can be filed”); Tonja Jacobi, Song Richardson & Gregory Barr, The Attrition of Rights Under Parole, 87 S. Cal. L. Rev. 887, 930 (2014) (arguing “prison even for technical violations . . . is problematic”); Cecelia Klingele, Rethinking the Use of Community Supervision, 103 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 1015, 1047 (2013) (supporting “barring revocation as a sanction for many noncriminal violations”); see also Vincent Schiraldi, Explainer: How ‘Technical Violations’ Drive Incarceration, The Appeal (Mar. 23, 2021), https://theappeal.org/the-lab/explainers/explainer-how-technical-violations-drive-incarceration/[https://perma.cc/8ZTH-WGYA]; Andrea Fenster, Technical Difficulties: D.C. Data Shows How Minor Supervision Violations Contribute to Excessive Jailing, Prison Pol’y Initiative (Oct. 28, 2020), https://www.prisonpolicy.org/b​log/2020/10/28/dc_technical_violations [https://perma.cc/U5PX-N2Y5] (same); Stephen Handelman, Recidivism’s Hidden Drivers: ‘Technical Violations’ of Probation or Parole, The Crime Rep. (Mar. 5, 2020), https://web.archive.org/web/20200927112600/https://thec​rimereport.org/2020/03/05/the-hidden-driver-of-recidivism-technical-violations-of-probation​-or-parole/ [https://perma.cc/G2AB-ZE7Z] (same); Eli Hager, At Least 61,000 Nationwide Are in Prison for Minor Parole Violations, The Marshall Project (Apr. 23, 2017, 10:00 PM), https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/04/23/at-least-61-000-nationwide-are-in-prison-for-minor-parole-violations [https://perma.cc/F6NB-RFX4] (same).Show More In 2019, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner announced an “effort to . . . bring balance back to sentencing” by limiting sentencing recommendations for technical violations to between thirty and sixty days’ imprisonment.6 6.Press Release, Phila. Dist. Att’y’s Off., supra note 1.Show More The year after, lawmakers from three states joined with Professors Lara Bazelon and Shon Hopwood to propose legislation reorienting community supervision toward “rehabilitative, rather than surveillance, goals” by eliminating punishment “for asserted technical violations (i.e. violations that are non-criminal in nature).”7 7.Lara Bazelon, Shon Hopwood, Jehan Gordon-Booth, Leslie Herod & Sydney Kamlager, The Just. Collaborative Sent’g Taskforce, Sample Legislation on Probation 7 (2020), https://30glxtj0jh81xn8rx26pr5af-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/20.​10_Model-Policy-for-Probation-1.pdf [https://perma.cc/378H-XECN]; see also Klingele, supra note 5, at 1047–49 (describing legislative efforts to reduce punishments for technical violations).Show More Even the staid U.S. Sentencing Commission recently announced a plan to reexamine how the federal sentencing guidelines “treat revocations . . . for conduct constituting a violation . . . that does not result in an arrest, criminal charge, or conviction,”8 8.Final Priorities for Amendment Cycle, 83 Fed. Reg. 43956, 43956–57 (Aug. 28, 2018).Show More explaining that it had “received comment over the years regarding the impact of revocations, much of which focused on the impact of technical violations.”9 9.Tracey Kyckelhahn & S. Alexander Maisel, U.S. Sent’g Comm’n, Revocations Among Federal Offenders 13 (2019), https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2019/20190131_Revocations.pdf [https://perma.cc/5742-T3TQ].Show More

The outcry over technical violations is understandable. Approximately half of all revocations are for technical violations, yet by definition this behavior is not ordinarily considered worthy of incarceration.10 10.Council of State Gov’t Just. Ctr., supra note 3.Show More By imprisoning people for non-criminal conduct, technical violations widen “the net of criminal social control.”11 11.Marcy R. Podkopacz & Barry C. Field, The Back-Door to Prison: Waiver Reform, “Blended Sentencing,” and the Law of Unintended Consequences, 91 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 997, 1070 (2001).Show More In practice, moreover, perfect compliance with the conditions of supervision is difficult, if not impossible,12 12.See Daly et al., supra note 5, at 15; ACLU Hum. Rts. Watch, Revoked: How Probation and Parole Feed Mass Incarceration in the U.S. 3 (2020), https://www.aclu.org/report/aclu-and-hrw-report-revoked-how-probation-and-parole-feed-mass-incarceration-united-states [https://perma.cc/TY3L-YD8F].Show More and penalizing minor infractions may encourage recidivism rather than reintegration.13 13.Carrie Pettus-Davis & Stephanie Kennedy, Inst. for Just. Rsch. and Dev., Going Back to Jail Without Committing a Crime: Early Findings from a Multi-State Trial 3 (2020), https://ijrd.csw.fsu.edu/sites/g/files/upcbnu1766/files/media/images/publication_pdfs/Going_Back_to_Jail.pdf [https://perma.cc/Y2Z8-RVLZ].Show More Finally, defendants charged with technical violations seem the most sympathetic—and therefore the most likely to win popular support for reform.14 14.As Professor Cecelia Klingele observed, the distinction between criminal and technical violations does not always reflect “the severity of the conduct.” Klingele, supra note 5, at 1049. Minor crimes like “[d]isorderly conduct” may not “signify a true threat to the community,” while technical violations like a “pedophile who stalks the playground” can “involve dangerous behavior.” Id.Show More

Concentrating on technical violations, however, misses a major piece of the story: the other half of revocations based on new criminal conduct,15 15.Cf. Council of State Gov’t Just. Ctr., supra note 3 (reporting that technical violations account for approximately half of all state prison admissions for probation and parole revocations); Daly et al., supra note 5, at 20 (reporting that technical violations account for between 61% and 90% of all petitions to revoke probation in some jurisdictions).Show More which I refer to in this Article as “criminal violations.” By state and federal law, every term of community supervision includes a condition requiring that the defendant not commit another crime,16 16.See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) (federal supervised release); id. § 3563(a) (federal probation); id. § 4209(a) (1982) (federal parole); Fiona Doherty, Obey All Laws and Be Good: Probation and the Meaning of Recidivism, 104 Geo. L.J. 291, 301 (2016) (state probation); see also Neil P. Cohen, The Law of Probation and Parole § 8:1 (2021) (“Probation and parole orders routinely contain a condition which, written in general terms, prohibits offenders from violating the law. . . . This condition appears in both federal and state probation and parole requirements.”).Show More which Professor Fiona Doherty has described as the “obey all laws” condition of supervision.17 17.Doherty, supra note 16, at 301–02.Show More If a person on probation, parole, or supervised release engages in new criminal activity, then the government can revoke their supervision and imprison them as punishment for their criminal violation.18 18.See infra Section II.B.Show More

Until now, there has been little to no research on how criminal violations drive punishment. In 2021, researchers from the CUNY Institute for State and Local Government published a study on probation revocations in ten U.S. counties, reporting that “technical violations—those issued purely for noncompliance . . . that do not involve new criminal activity”—range from 61% to 90% of all violations filed in some jurisdictions.19 19.Daly et al., supra note 5, at 9, 20.Show More By implication, of course, the remaining 10% to 39% of violations must have been for new criminal conduct. The study observed that these “new crime” violations were more likely to end in revocation than were technical violations, yet it was “not clear . . . what types of new crimes are tied to revocations.”20 20.Id. at 20, 32.Show More The authors highlighted “new crime” violations as an “important question to be further explored in future research,” emphasizing that their “prevalence” made “addressing them . . . critical for significantly reducing revocations overall.”21 21.Id. at 32.Show More

The popular focus on technical violations is akin to the well-meaning but limited calls for reducing punishment of “nonviolent drug offenders.”22 22.James Forman Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America 220 (2017).Show More As Professor James Forman, Jr., has explained, “America’s incarceration rates for nonviolent drug offenders are unprecedented and morally outrageous, but they are not ‘the real reason our prison population is so high.’”23 23.Id. at 228.Show More In reality, what drives mass incarceration are long sentences for violent crimes.24 24.See John Pfaff, Decarceration’s Blindspots, 16 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 253, 265 (2019).Show More Even if the United States released every prisoner convicted of a non-violent drug offense, it still would have the largest prison population in the world.25 25.Forman, supra note 22, at 228.Show More

Just like emphasizing nonviolent drug offenders, focusing only on technical violations is understandable yet incomplete. Punishments for non-criminal technical violations may be excessive or even unfair, yet they account for only half of all revocations. Even if the government stopped punishing technical violations entirely, punishments for criminal violations would still drive up to half of all revocations in some jurisdictions.26 26.See Council of State Gov’t Just. Ctr., supra note 3 (reporting that technical violations account for approximately half of all state prison admissions for probation and parole revocations); Daly et al., supra note 5, at 20 (reporting that technical violations account for between 61% and 90% of all petitions to revoke probation in some jurisdictions).Show More To understand the connection between community supervision and mass incarceration, therefore, we must study the role of criminal violations.

To be clear: I am not suggesting that technical violations are unimportant because they result in less prison time. Even a short prison sentence “inflicts a ‘grievous loss’”27 27.Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 482 (1972).Show More that may “imperil [a person’s] job, interrupt his source of income, and impair his family relationships.”28 28.Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 114 (1975).Show More I also recognize that people under supervision who commit new crimes are not conventionally sympathetic.29 29.Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 709–10 (2000) (describing violators as “problem case[s] among problem cases”).Show More Nevertheless, federal judges revoke supervised release and send people to prison for criminal violations in tens of thousands of cases every year and impose hundreds of thousands of months of imprisonment. Criminal violations are thus a critical issue in supervision law and policy that deserve our attention and respect.

In this Article, I offer the first comprehensive analysis of how criminal violations drive punishment, focusing on the federal system of supervised release.30 30.I do not address probation, which is community supervision in lieu of imprisonment. See 18 U.S.C. § 3561(a); U.S. Sent’g Guidelines Manual § 7A2(a) (U.S. Sent’g Comm’n 2018). Probation is reserved for less serious crimes and imposed in less than 10% of cases. See 18 U.S.C. § 3561(a); U.S. Sent’g Comm’n, 2019 Annual Report and Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics 61 fig.6 (2019), https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2019/2019-Annual-Report-and-Sourcebook.pdf. [https://perma.cc/AJ5N-TU7A].Show More The federal supervision system is a good example because it is one of the ten largest in the country31 31.See Doherty, supra note 16, at 298–300.Show More and “inevitably acts as a model, both positive and negative, for developments in the states.”32 32.See Frank O. Bowman, III, The Failure of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: A Structural Analysis, 105 Colum. L. Rev. 1315, 1318, 1320 (2005).Show More Information on federal supervision violations is also publicly available. In July 2020, the U.S. Sentencing Commission published a report on federal supervision violations, which “[f]or the first time” made available “data collected from documents related to revocation hearings,” including a database of 108,115 revocation hearings in federal district courts between 2013 and 2017.33 33.U.S. Sent’g Comm’n, Federal Probation and Supervised Release Violations 1, 12–13 (2020) [hereinafter Violations], https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2020/20200728_Violations.pdf. [https://perma.cc/J3VH-B9T2].Show More Because federal courts ordinarily “do not use a standardized reporting system for sentences imposed following violations,” the Commission’s revocation database offers an extraordinary opportunity for understanding this subterranean layer of the federal criminal justice system.34 34.Id. at 12. Unfortunately, the Commission only collected data on the five years between 2013 to 2017, so we remain in the dark on revocations outside this time frame.Show More

Through an original empirical study of the revocation database and examination of federal case law, I sought to answer three basic questions about how criminal violations drive punishment: (1) How much incarceration is attributable to criminal violations? (2) What is the function of criminal violations in the federal criminal justice system? And (3) What is the most commonly punished criminal violation? In answering these questions, I uncovered significant problems in the law of revocation, which led me to ask a fourth question: Is revoking supervised release for criminal violations justified or fair?

Part I of this Article reviews the law and history of supervised release. Part II describes my empirical and legal analysis of revocations for criminal violations in the federal system, which found they drive two-thirds of the total prison time imposed by increasing sentences for criminal convictions and making punishment easier for the government. Part III presents my analysis showing that the immigration crime of illegal reentry is one of the most commonly punished criminal violations and revealing that supervised release has become part of the “crimmigration” system. Part IV argues that revoking supervised release for criminal violations inflicts unfair double punishment and erodes constitutional rights, and therefore prosecution without revocation is a better and fairer way to punish crimes committed under community supervision. Finally, the Conclusion suggests that the law of revocation opens an exception to the ordinary rules of prosecution, which the U.S. Supreme Court, the Sentencing Commission, and the U.S. Department of Justice have generalized into a major engine of imprisonment.

  1. Cf. Press Release, Phila. Dist. Att’y’s Off., New Philadelphia D.A.O. Policies Announced Mar. 21, 2019 to End Mass Supervision (Mar. 21, 2019), https://medium.com/philadelphia-justice/philadelphia-daos-policies-to-end-mass-supervision-fd5988cfe1f1 [https://perma.cc/7​M3F-2U24] (“Mass supervision is a major driver of mass incarceration.”). ↑
  2. Danielle Kaeble, U.S. Dep’t of Just., Probation and Parole in the U.S., 2020, at 1 (2021), https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ppus20.pdf [https://perma.cc/9RRN-7TVM]. ↑
  3. Adam Gelb, Juliene James, Amy Solomon & Brian Elderbroom, The PEW Charitable Trs., Probation and Parole Systems Marked by High Stakes, Missed Opportunities 9 (2018), https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/assets/2018/09/probation_and_parole_systems_marked_​by_high_stakes_missed_opportunities_pew.pdf [https://perma.cc/F4G4-AC2Z]; Council of State Gov’t Just. Ctr., Confined and Costly: How Supervision Violations Are Filling Prisons and Burdening Budgets (2019), https://csgjusticecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/co​nfined-and-costly.pdf [https://perma.cc/QVS2-NN4L]. ↑
  4. See Statement on the Future of Probation & Parole in the United States, EXiT: Execs. Transforming Prob. & Parole (Nov. 13, 2020), https://www.exitprobationparole.org/statement [https://perma.cc/D2NF-5YJV]. ↑
  5. See Alex Roth, Sandhya Kajeepeta & Alex Boldin, Vera Inst. of Just., The Perils of Probation: How Supervision Contributes to Jail Populations 29 (2021), https://www.ve​ra.org/downloads/publications/the-perils-of-probation.pdf [https://perma.cc/T9H8-YG5D] (advocating for “eliminating incarceration for technical violations”); Reagan Daly, Mackenzie Deary, Victoria Lawson & Pavithra Nagarajan, CUNY Inst. for State & Loc. Governance, Pathways to Success on Probation: Lessons Learned from the First Phase of the Reducing Revocations Challenge 30–31 (2021), https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5fcea962a1b4d​771ad256fcc/t/61707b8a29d1471381fbcce8/1634761610960/10192021+Reducing+Revocations+v4.pdf [https://perma.cc/K9X3-QB8F] (recommending “limit[ing] the circumstances under which formal technical violations can be filed”); Tonja Jacobi, Song Richardson & Gregory Barr, The Attrition of Rights Under Parole, 87 S. Cal. L. Rev. 887, 930 (2014) (arguing “prison even for technical violations . . . is problematic”); Cecelia Klingele, Rethinking the Use of Community Supervision, 103 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 1015, 1047 (2013) (supporting “barring revocation as a sanction for many noncriminal violations”); see also Vincent Schiraldi, Explainer: How ‘Technical Violations’ Drive Incarceration, The Appeal (Mar. 23, 2021), https://theappeal.org/the-lab/explainers/explainer-how-technical-violations-drive-incarceration/[https://perma.cc/8ZTH-WGYA]; Andrea Fenster, Technical Difficulties: D.C. Data Shows How Minor Supervision Violations Contribute to Excessive Jailing, Prison Pol’y Initiative (Oct. 28, 2020), https://www.prisonpolicy.org/b​log/2020/10/28/dc_technical_violations [https://perma.cc/U5PX-N2Y5] (same); Stephen Handelman, Recidivism’s Hidden Drivers: ‘Technical Violations’ of Probation or Parole, The Crime Rep. (Mar. 5, 2020), https://web.archive.org/web/20200927112600/https://thec​rimereport.org/2020/03/05/the-hidden-driver-of-recidivism-technical-violations-of-probation​-or-parole/ [https://perma.cc/G2AB-ZE7Z] (same); Eli Hager, At Least 61,000 Nationwide Are in Prison for Minor Parole Violations, The Marshall Project (Apr. 23, 2017, 10:00 PM), https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/04/23/at-least-61-000-nationwide-are-in-prison-for-minor-parole-violations [https://perma.cc/F6NB-RFX4] (same). ↑
  6. Press Release, Phila. Dist. Att’y’s Off., supra note 1. ↑
  7. Lara Bazelon, Shon Hopwood, Jehan Gordon-Booth, Leslie Herod & Sydney Kamlager, The Just. Collaborative Sent’g Taskforce, Sample Legislation on Probation 7 (2020), https://30glxtj0jh81xn8rx26pr5af-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/20.​10_Model-Policy-for-Probation-1.pdf [https://perma.cc/378H-XECN]; see also Klingele, supra note 5, at 1047–49 (describing legislative efforts to reduce punishments for technical violations). ↑
  8. Final Priorities for Amendment Cycle, 83 Fed. Reg. 43956, 43956–57 (Aug. 28, 2018). ↑
  9. Tracey Kyckelhahn & S. Alexander Maisel, U.S. Sent’g Comm’n, Revocations Among Federal Offenders 13 (2019), https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2019/20190131_Revocations.pdf [https://perma.cc/5742-T3TQ]. ↑
  10. Council of State Gov’t Just. Ctr., supra note 3. ↑
  11. Marcy R. Podkopacz & Barry C. Field, The Back-Door to Prison: Waiver Reform, “Blended Sentencing,” and the Law of Unintended Consequences, 91 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 997, 1070 (2001). ↑
  12. See Daly et al., supra note 5, at 15; ACLU Hum. Rts. Watch, Revoked: How Probation and Parole Feed Mass Incarceration in the U.S. 3 (2020), https://www.aclu.org/report/aclu-and-hrw-report-revoked-how-probation-and-parole-feed-mass-incarceration-united-states [https://perma.cc/TY3L-YD8F]. ↑
  13. Carrie Pettus-Davis & Stephanie Kennedy, Inst. for Just. Rsch. and Dev., Going Back to Jail Without Committing a Crime: Early Findings from a Multi-State Trial 3 (2020), https://ijrd.csw.fsu.edu/sites/g/files/upcbnu1766/files/media/images/publication_pdfs/Going_Back_to_Jail.pdf [https://perma.cc/Y2Z8-RVLZ]. ↑
  14. As Professor Cecelia Klingele observed, the distinction between criminal and technical violations does not always reflect “the severity of the conduct.” Klingele, supra note 5, at 1049. Minor crimes like “[d]isorderly conduct” may not “signify a true threat to the community,” while technical violations like a “pedophile who stalks the playground” can “involve dangerous behavior.” Id. ↑
  15. Cf. Council of State Gov’t Just. Ctr., supra note 3 (reporting that technical violations account for approximately half of all state prison admissions for probation and parole revocations); Daly et al., supra note 5, at 20 (reporting that technical violations account for between 61% and 90% of all petitions to revoke probation in some jurisdictions). ↑
  16. See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3583(d) (federal supervised release); id. § 3563(a) (federal probation); id. § 4209(a) (1982) (federal parole); Fiona Doherty, Obey All Laws and Be Good: Probation and the Meaning of Recidivism, 104 Geo. L.J. 291, 301 (2016) (state probation); see also Neil P. Cohen, The Law of Probation and Parole § 8:1 (2021) (“Probation and parole orders routinely contain a condition which, written in general terms, prohibits offenders from violating the law. . . . This condition appears in both federal and state probation and parole requirements.”). ↑
  17. Doherty, supra note 16, at 301–02. ↑
  18. See infra Section II.B. ↑
  19. Daly et al., supra note 5, at 9, 20. ↑
  20. Id. at 20, 32. ↑
  21. Id. at 32. ↑
  22. James Forman Jr., Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America 220 (2017). ↑
  23. Id. at 228. ↑
  24. See John Pfaff, Decarceration’s Blindspots, 16 Ohio St. J. Crim. L. 253, 265 (2019). ↑
  25. Forman, supra note 22, at 228. ↑
  26. See Council of State Gov’t Just. Ctr., supra note 3 (reporting that technical violations account for approximately half of all state prison admissions for probation and parole revocations); Daly et al., supra note 5, at 20 (reporting that technical violations account for between 61% and 90% of all petitions to revoke probation in some jurisdictions). ↑
  27. Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 U.S. 471, 482 (1972). ↑
  28. Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 114 (1975). ↑
  29. Johnson v. United States, 529 U.S. 694, 709–10 (2000) (describing violators as “problem case[s] among problem cases”). ↑
  30. I do not address probation, which is community supervision in lieu of imprisonment. See 18 U.S.C. § 3561(a); U.S. Sent’g Guidelines Manual § 7A2(a) (U.S. Sent’g Comm’n 2018). Probation is reserved for less serious crimes and imposed in less than 10% of cases. See 18 U.S.C. § 3561(a); U.S. Sent’g Comm’n, 2019 Annual Report and Sourcebook of Federal Sentencing Statistics 61 fig.6 (2019), https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/annual-reports-and-sourcebooks/2019/2019-Annual-Report-and-Sourcebook.pdf. [https://perma.cc/AJ5N-TU7A]. ↑
  31. See Doherty, supra note 16, at 298–300. ↑
  32. See Frank O. Bowman, III, The Failure of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines: A Structural Analysis, 105 Colum. L. Rev. 1315, 1318, 1320 (2005). ↑
  33. U.S. Sent’g Comm’n, Federal Probation and Supervised Release Violations 1, 12–13 (2020) [hereinafter Violations], https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-and-publications/research-publications/2020/20200728_Violations.pdf. [https://perma.cc/J3VH-B9T2]. ↑

  34. Id. at 12. Unfortunately, the Commission only collected data on the five years between 2013 to 2017, so we remain in the dark on revocations outside this time frame. ↑

Life or Death: Employing State Constitutional Principles of Proportionality to Combat the Extreme Sentencing of Emerging Adults

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that, when facing criminal punishment, juvenile offenders must be treated differently from adults. Because those under the age of eighteen lack maturity, have heightened vulnerability to external influence, and possess a unique capacity for rehabilitation, the imposition of extreme sentences—including the death penalty, mandatory life without parole, and discretionary life without parole for non-homicide offenses—is disproportionate and unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.

Emerging neuroscientific research strongly indicates that the immaturity, impressionability, and corrigibility of juveniles are also characteristics of emerging adults, defined here as individuals ages eighteen through twenty. Courts, however, have consistently resisted extending Federal Eighth Amendment protections to this demographic. This Note therefore proposes challenging the extreme sentencing of emerging adults under state, instead of federal, constitutional law. All fifty states prohibit cruel and/or unusual punishment, or its equivalent, in their state constitution. Further, recent litigation in Washington and Illinois demonstrates how successful challenges to disproportionate emerging-adult sentencing under state constitutional law can be achieved. This Note advocates that litigants launch facial challenges, in particular, under state constitutional provisions as a desirable mechanism for change.

Introduction

In 2015, Jonas David Nelson was convicted of first-degree murder for the premeditated shooting of his father.1 1.Nelson v. State, 947 N.W.2d 31, 33 (Minn. 2020), cert. denied, 141 S. Ct. 2518 (2021).Show More On the day of the offense, Mr. Nelson was eighteen years and one week old.2 2.Id.Show More He was subsequently sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, in accordance with Minnesota law.3 3.Id. at 34.Show More Despite the fact that the record was “replete with evidence of [Mr.] Nelson’s cognitive and social delays and years of psychological and emotional abuse,”4 4.Id. at 40.Show More the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld his mandatory-life-without-parole sentence on both direct appeal and upon request for postconviction relief.5 5.Id. at 34, 40.Show More As powerfully noted by Justice Chutich in dissent, Mr. Nelson was given “the functional equivalent of a death sentence, without any consideration of him, his personality, his upbringing, or his psychological attributes, solely because the offense occurred seven days after his eighteenth birthday.”6 6.Id.at 41 (Chutich, J., dissenting).Show More

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that, when facing criminal punishment, juvenile offenders—i.e., those under the age of eighteen—must be treated differently from adults.7 7.See, e.g.,Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 572 (2005) (describing the “differences between juvenile and adult offenders” as “marked and well understood” and thus holding unconstitutional the imposition of the death penalty on juvenile offenders).Show More Juveniles lack maturity, have heightened vulnerability to external influence, and possess a unique capacity for rehabilitation.8 8.SeeinfraPart I.Show More Given this reality, the imposition of extreme sentences—including the death penalty, mandatory life without parole (“LWOP”), and discretionary LWOP for non-homicide offenses—on juveniles in criminal court is disproportionate and unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment.9 9.The Supreme Court has held that sentencing a juvenile to death, Roper, 543 U.S. at 574–75, as well as imposing discretionary LWOP for non-homicide offenses, Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 82 (2010), and mandatory LWOP for any offense, Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 479 (2012), violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.Show More But these constitutional protections cease to exist the day one turns eighteen. Despite referring to Mr. Nelson’s case as “extremely tragic,” the Minnesota Supreme Court felt bound to follow U.S. Supreme Court precedent that “clearly limited [Eighth Amendment protection] to juvenile offenders under the age of 18 at the time of the offense.”10 10.Nelson, 947 N.W.2d at 40 (emphasis added).Show More Had Mr. Nelson been eight days younger, the mandatory LWOP sentence that he received would have been unconstitutional as applied to him.

Emerging neuroscientific research, however, strongly indicates that the hallmark characteristics of youth—immaturity, impressionability, and corrigibility—are present in individuals older than eighteen, too.11 11.See infra Subsection II.B.1.Show More Cognitive development continues well into a young person’s twenties, and society recognizes the relative immaturity of this demographic through prohibitions on activities such as drinking and firearm possession.12 12.SeeElizabeth S. Scott, Richard J. Bonnie & Laurence Steinberg, Young Adulthood as a Transitional Legal Category: Science, Social Change, and Justice Policy, 85 Fordham L. Rev. 641, 645 (2016); Karen U. Lindell & Katrina L. Goodjoint, Juv. L. Ctr., Rethinking Justice for Emerging Adults: Spotlight on the Great Lakes Region 11–12 (2020), https://jlc.org/sites/default/files/attachments/2020-09/JLC-Emerging-Adults-9-2.pdf [https://perma.cc/U8GG-PBR9].Show More As a consequence, the proportionality considerations relevant for those under eighteen are arguably as compelling for “emerging adults”—defined here as those ages eighteen, nineteen, and twenty—as they are for juveniles. Despite this reality, emerging adults have not been granted protection against the harshest of criminal sentences under the Federal Constitution, and claims of disproportionality under the Eighth Amendment have been universally quashed.13 13.See infra Part III.Show More Given the current composition of the Supreme Court, seeking federal constitutional protection against disproportionately harsh sentences for emerging adults seems futile.14 14.See infra Part III.Show More The more effective realm for such advocacy, this Note posits, is in the states.

This Note proposes that advocates redirect focus and challenge the extreme sentencing of emerging adults as disproportionate under state, instead of federal, constitutional law. All fifty states prohibit cruel and/or unusual punishment, or its equivalent, in their state constitutions.15 15.See infraSection IV.A.Show More Further, many have interpreted these clauses to be broader and more protective than the Federal Eighth Amendment.16 16.See infra Section IV.A.Show More Attention should therefore be directed toward challenging extreme sentences for emerging adults under these provisions.

Recent litigation in Washington and Illinois illustrates how this can be achieved. In 2021, the Washington Supreme Court held that imposing mandatory-LWOP sentences on those ages eighteen through twenty violates the state’s constitutional provision against cruel punishment.17 17.See infra Section IV.B.Show More Over the last few years, Illinois state courts have also struck down the harshest criminal sentences as applied to emerging adults, holding that they violate the state constitution’s proportionate penalties clause.18 18.See infra Section IV.C.Show More Challenging emerging-adult sentencing in these ways is a promising strategy for future advocacy efforts across the country.

The contributions of this Note are threefold. First, while theories about emerging adulthood have existed for two decades, they have only recently been argued in court.19 19.SeeJeffrey J. Arnett, Emerging Adulthood: A Theory of Development from the Late Teens Through the Twenties, 55 Am. Psych. 469, 469 (2000).Show More This Note comprehensively surveys recent cases from both state and federal courts and synthesizes the arguments that have—and have not—been successful, a notable contribution to the literature. Second, academics and scholars have advocated generally for the consideration of proportionality in sentencing20 20.See, e.g., Jim Staihar, Proportionality and Punishment, 100 Iowa L. Rev. 1209, 1222–23 (2015) (arguing that those who commit more serious crimes deserve more severe punishments).Show More and explored how state constitutional provisions could be utilized to further such aims.21 21.See, e.g., Gregory S. Schneider, Sentencing Proportionality in the States, 54 Ariz. L. Rev. 241, 273–74 (2012) (discussing how state judiciaries could engage in proportionality review under state constitutional law).Show More However, none have applied these principles to the extreme sentencing of emerging adults, and this Note will be the first to advocate for such a path forward nationwide. Finally, the power of state constitutional law is significantly underappreciated in academic literature,22 22.SeeGary S. Gildin & Jamison E. Colburn, Introduction: State Constitutionalism in the 21st Century, 115 Pa. St. L. Rev. 779, 781 (2011) (“State constitutional law is a vibrant, albeit still underappreciated, area of legal study.”); Richard S. Frase, Limiting Excessive Prison Sentences Under Federal and State Constitutions, 11 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 39, 64 (2008) (encouraging “litigators, courts, and scholars to be less ‘Fed-centric’”).Show More despite the fact that it has profound and direct impact on those prosecuted in state courts across the nation. This Note contributes to the academic conversation by explaining how state constitutional law can be used as a powerful tool to inspire positive, tangible change, helping advocates structure their thinking and supplying them with arguments for state court practice.

This argument proceeds in five Parts. Part I considers proportionality as a philosophical concept, documenting its use in federal constitutional law to date, and reviews the Supreme Court’s Eighth Amendment jurisprudence as it relates to juveniles. Part II explains why the Supreme Court has remained faithful to the age of eighteen as a cutoff for constitutional protection against extreme sentencing but challenges the justifications provided by the Court in light of modern developments in neuroscience and social science. Part III surveys the failed efforts to gain federal constitutional protection for emerging adults, and Part IV explains why the most effective route forward for emerging adult justice will instead be under state constitutional law, highlighting Washington and Illinois as case studies of success. Part V recommends that litigants seek facial, as opposed to as-applied, protection of emerging adults and addresses counterarguments to that proposal.

  1. Nelson v. State, 947 N.W.2d 31, 33 (Minn. 2020), cert. denied, 141 S. Ct. 2518 (2021). ↑
  2. Id. ↑
  3. Id. at 34. ↑
  4. Id. at 40. ↑
  5. Id. at 34, 40. ↑
  6. Id. at 41 (Chutich, J., dissenting). ↑
  7.  See, e.g., Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 572 (2005) (describing the “differences between juvenile and adult offenders” as “marked and well understood” and thus holding unconstitutional the imposition of the death penalty on juvenile offenders). ↑
  8. See infra Part I. ↑
  9. The Supreme Court has held that sentencing a juvenile to death, Roper, 543 U.S. at 574–75, as well as imposing discretionary LWOP for non-homicide offenses, Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48, 82 (2010), and mandatory LWOP for any offense, Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 479 (2012), violates the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. ↑
  10. Nelson, 947 N.W.2d at 40 (emphasis added). ↑
  11. See infra Subsection II.B.1. ↑
  12. See Elizabeth S. Scott, Richard J. Bonnie & Laurence Steinberg, Young Adulthood as a Transitional Legal Category: Science, Social Change, and Justice Policy, 85 Fordham L. Rev. 641, 645 (2016); Karen U. Lindell & Katrina L. Goodjoint, Juv. L. Ctr., Rethinking Justice for Emerging Adults: Spotlight on the Great Lakes Region
    11–12 (2020),

    https://jlc.org/sites/default/files/attachments/2020-09/JLC-Emerging-Adults-9-2.pdf [https://perma.cc/U8GG-PBR9]

    .

    ↑

  13. See infra Part III. ↑
  14. See infra Part III. ↑
  15. See infra Section IV.A. ↑
  16. See infra Section IV.A. ↑
  17. See infra Section IV.B. ↑
  18. See infra Section IV.C. ↑
  19. See Jeffrey J. Arnett, Emerging Adulthood: A Theory of Development from the Late Teens Through the Twenties, 55 Am. Psych. 469, 469 (2000). ↑
  20. See, e.g., Jim Staihar, Proportionality and Punishment, 100 Iowa L. Rev.
    1209, 1222–23 (2015) (

    arguing that those who commit more serious crimes deserve more severe punishments)

    .

    ↑

  21. See, e.g., Gregory S. Schneider, Sentencing Proportionality in the States, 54 Ariz. L. Rev. 241, 273
    –7

    4 (2012) (discussing how state judiciaries could engage in proportionality review under state constitutional law). ↑

  22. See Gary S. Gildin & Jamison E. Colburn, Introduction: State Constitutionalism in the 21st Century, 115 Pa. St. L. Rev. 779, 781 (2011) (“State constitutional law is a vibrant, albeit still underappreciated, area of legal study.”); Richard S. Frase, Limiting Excessive Prison Sentences Under Federal and State Constitutions, 11 U. Pa. J. Const. L.

    39

    , 64 (2008) (encouraging “litigators, courts, and scholars to be less ‘Fed-centric’”). ↑

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