A Cross-Clinic Collaboration: How an Amicus Brief Helped Create Judicial Recognition of Adultification Bias in Juvenile Sentencing

In re Personal Restraint of Asaria Miller, at the urging of merits counsel from the University of Washington’s Race and Justice Clinic, supported by amicus counsel from Seattle University School of Law’s Civil Rights Clinic, the Washington State Court of Appeals took an important step in accounting for the ways that youth of color likely receive harsher punishment than their white counterparts—specifically due to adultification bias. The cross-clinic collaboration resulted in judicial recognition of the operation of adultification bias in the criminal law context, as well as a mandate that sentencing courts consider adultification bias whenever sentencing a youth of color—the first time adultification bias has been incorporated into a legal standard in any American court.