Children & the Law Blog

The Center for Children, Law & Policy at the University of Houston recently brought together a group of leading scholars to explore the connections and the tensions between “feminist jurisprudence” and “child-centered jurisprudence.” Audio from the conference is now available and video podcast will follow shortly. Publications from these presentations will be published next year [...]

It was announced on the SCOTUSblog that the state of Louisiana filed a Petition for Rehearing on Monday for the case Kennedy v. Louisiana. In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment for a defendant convicted of raping a child violates the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court reached its decision by [...]

As talk continues in Texas and elsewhere over grandparents’ rights to visitation, I found an article on the subject written by Professor Joan Catherine Bohl of Stetson University College of Law from 8 years ago. At the time the article was written, Bohl notes that courts nationwide were moving away from granting grandparents visitation [...]

Grits for Breakfast and the Brownsville Herald reported that Justice of the Peace Gustavo “Gus” Garza, from Brownsville, Texas, was ordered last month by State District Judge Abel C. Limas to stop his practice of offering spanking as an alternative sanction for disciplining children in his courtroom. If a child was convicted of truancy, JP [...]

As mentioned in the Volokh Conspiracy blog, Sophia Willis, a single mother, was arrested and convicted on charges of felony child battery after she struck her 11 year old son five to seven times with a belt or an extension cord, resulting in bruises on his arm and thigh. Due to mitigating factors, including the [...]