Representing juvenile lifers: do attorneys in parole hearings matter?
The title of this post is the title of this new article authored by Stuti Kokkalera and just published online in the
Journal of Crime and Justice. Here is its abstract:
Courts and scholars have advocated for the right to legal representation in the parole process. The state examined in this study qualified that juvenile lifer parole candidates have the right to an attorney at their initial parole board hearing. Data drawn from written decisions issued by the state parole board were analyzed to determine the association between having an attorney and type of legal representation on two parole outcomes: (1) whether a candidate was granted or denied parole, and (2) length of interval terms, that is, number of years that a candidate waits for another hearing. While having an attorney at the hearing was not related to both outcomes, type of representation was associated with interval terms. Hearings with a