Investigative Reporting students produce audio piece on history of juvenile court

By Julie Pawlikowski, second year graduate assistant in the Media Management program

In the spring 2017 semester, Investigative Reporting students and now Duquesne Media alumni Casey Chafin and Matthew Voggel dove into the history of juvenile court. They focused on the results and repercussions of the 2012 Miller v Alabama case that found it was unconstitutional to give mandatory sentences of life without parole to juveniles. Therefore all juveniles who were sentenced with life without parole must be re-sentenced. They interviewed Bruce Ledewitz, a professor of law at Duquesne University School of Law about the legal environment surrounding the increase of death sentences in the 1990s. To hear the full audio story, click below. To read the article they wrote on the history of juvenile courts, click here.