Juvenile and Special Education Law Clinic

Conventional teaching asserts that the penal sanction serves four purposes: general deterrence, special deterrence, punishment, and rehabilitation. Yet, in today's climate of mandatory minimum and "flat time" sentences of increasing length, as well as the abolition of parole, the rehabilitative function has been largely abandoned in favor of more punitive correctional approaches, with little thought given to the consequences when offenders are eventually returned to their communities.

Nevertheless, contrary to the current tilt toward punitive penology, a federal statute-the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)-still guarantees special education services to persons incarcerated in adult correctional facilities if their educational disabilities were identified prior to their jailing or imprisonment. However, despite the promises of IDEA, many individuals in the District of Columbia's adult criminal justice system do not receive the educational services to which they are statutorily entitled. This problem is compounded by the scattered relocation of D.C. prisoners to institutions throughout the country in the wake of the recent closing of the District's Lorton prison facility.

Last semester, the Juvenile and Special Education Law Clinic, in addition to representing individual clients, focused its efforts on conceptualizing and developing litigation and other strategies to remedy the systemic denial of special education services to qualified adults who are detained or imprisoned by the District of Columbia. Begun by third-year students Tracey Ballard, Charles Green, Edgar Vega, and Gina Walton, this work will be carried forward in the spring semester by second-year students Sarah Bullard, Vanessa Carlo-Miranda, Latrice Flucas, Shennoa McDay, Sean Riley, and Victor Urbaez. The ultimate objective is to compel the District's public school system and correctional authorities to provide the Clinic's incarcerated adult clients with the special educational services required by IDEA. In the process, students will create publications and training materials to assist lawyers who are confronted with the same violations of federal law in the District of Columbia and other jurisdictions. As always, the Clinic will continue to provide special education advocacy for children involved in the District's neglect and delinquency systems.

Regarding the latter category of cases, the Clinic's special education advocates appeared in the fall before the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on behalf of a delinquency proceeding client who, over her objection, faced commitment to a "faith-based" residential facility in Arkansas. After the Clinic argued that the religion clauses of the First Amendment would be abridged by such a placement, the court reversed course and placed the client in a nonsectarian residential institution in Colorado. Working in conjunction with the client's delinquency counsel, students pursued review of that order in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. They argued that due process principles, statutory provisions, and the Superior Court's own rules were violated by the court's refusal to hear evidence at the client's disposition hearing about locally available and less restrictive placement alternatives. Students also argued that the client's confinement is contrary to the rehabilitative purposes and requirements of District of Columbia statutory law, IDEA, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Although an appellate briefing schedule has not yet been set, the Clinic anticipates that the appeal will be heard sometime during the spring semester.

The clinic continues to miss the presence of Prof. Mary Hynes, and expresses its deep appreciation to Student Bar Association President Daniel Toto, 3L, who organized the Mary Hynes Fun Run, which raised approximately $4,000 for a scholarship to be awarded to a law student with a demonstrable commitment to Prof. Hynes's passion: the provision of legal services to abused and neglected children.