Youth Justice in America

Youth Justice in America, Second Edition engages students in an exciting, informed discussion of the U.S. juvenile justice system and fills a pressing need to make legal issues personally meaningful to young people. Written in a straightforward style, the book addresses tough, important issues that directly affect today′s youth, including the rights of accused juveniles, search and seizure, self-incrimination and confession, right to appeal, and the death penalty for juveniles. Focusing on cases that relate to the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the subject matter comes alive through a wide variety of in-book learning aids. 

Maryam Ahranjani (LLM, University of Pennsylvania Law School, JD, American University Washington College of Law) taught for ten years at the Washington College of Law and is a visiting professor of law at the University of New Mexico School of Law.  For five years, she served as associate director of the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project, which places law students across America in public high schools to teach constitutional literacy courses. Ahranjani is also the co-founder (with Andrew Ferguson) of the National Youth Justice Alliance, a non-profit organization that sends lawyers and law students to juvenile detention facilities to teach young people about Constitutional rights and responsibilities. Andrew Ferguson (L.L.M., Georgetown Law Center, JD Univ. Pennsylvania Law School), Associate Professor of Law at the David A. Clarke School of Law, University of the District of Columbia, teaches courses on criminal law, procedure, and evidence. He is author of Why Jury Duty Matters: A Citizen’s Guide to Constitutional Action (NYU Press).  He is co-chair of the ABA Criminal Justice Section’s Student Activities Committee, which runs the “Citizen Amicus Project,” a national project to involve law students in current Supreme Court cases. Previously, Professor Ferguson worked as a supervising attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where he represented adults and juveniles in cases ranging from homicide to misdemeanor offenses. Jamin B. Raskin is professor of constitutional law and the First Amendment at American University Washington College of Law and founder of its Marshall-Brennan Fellows Program, which places law students in public high schools to teach the We the Students constitutional literacy course. A former assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Raskin is an active public interest lawyer, defending the rights of political expression and participation for both adults and young people. He is also the author of Overruling Democracy (2003) and dozens of law review articles, op-eds, and essays on constitutional law.