NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A5022
SPONSOR: O'Donnell (MS) TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the criminal procedure law, in
relation to increasing the age of a person deemed a youth for youthful
offender status
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL: This bill would change the age of
eligibility for youthful offenders, making older teenagers and those who
were twenty or twenty-one at the time the crime was committed eligible
for youthful offender treatment.
SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:
Section one of the bill amends subdivision one of Criminal Procedure Law
section 720.10 by changing the upper age of eligibility for youthful
offender treatment from "less than nineteen" to "less than twenty-two."
Section 2 is the effective date, which is 60 days after the bill shall
have become a law.
JUSTIFICATION: As the United States Supreme Court recognized in Roper
v. Simms, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), adolescents and teenagers differ signif-
icantly from adults with respect to characteristics that lead to a
conclusion that juveniles have diminished culpability. Youth are less
mature and have an underdeveloped sense of responsibility; they are more
vulnerable to outside pressures, including peer pressure, and other
negative influences; and their characters are less well formed and still
developing. Id. at 569-570. Youthful offender status recognizes those
differences and provides a mechanism for different treatment of young
offenders when appropriate. In light of the research discussed below,
eligibility for youthful offender treatment should be extended to those
who were less than twenty-two at the time the crime was committed.
Studies reviewed and summarized by the National Conference of State
Legislatures support a conclusion that the neurobiological, psychosocial
and developmental differences between juveniles and adults continue into
the late teens and early twenties. A longitudinal study conducted by the
chief of Brain Imaging in the Child Psychiatry Branch of the National
Institute of Mental Health concluded that the average human brain is not
fully developed until age 25; critically, the frontal lobe, which is
responsible for functions such as advanced cognition, controlling
impulses and judging consequences, continues to develop into the early
twenties. The MacArthur Foundation has conducted psychosocial and
developmental research that corroborates the neurobiological findings.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: A.1794 (2013-14) A.10267 (2012).
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: None.
EFFECTIVE DATE: To take effect 60 days after the bill shall have
become a law.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
5022
2015-2016 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
February 10, 2015
___________
Introduced by M. of A. O'DONNELL, JAFFEE, CLARK, PERRY -- read once and
referred to the Committee on Codes
AN ACT to amend the criminal procedure law, in relation to increasing
the age of a person deemed a youth for youthful offender status
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision 1 of section 720.10 of the criminal procedure
2 law, as amended by chapter 411 of the laws of 1979, is amended to read
3 as follows:
4 1. "Youth" means a person charged with a crime alleged to have been
5 committed when he was at least sixteen years old and less than [nine-
6 teen] twenty-two years old or a person charged with being a juvenile
7 offender as defined in subdivision forty-two of section 1.20 of this
8 chapter.
9 § 2. This act shall take effect on the sixtieth day after it shall
10 have become a law.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD02998-01-5
