Christopher D. Berk. “Reply to Elizabeth Scott, Laurence Steinberg, David Tanenhaus, and James Backstrom.” Law & Social Inquiry 44, no. 3 (August 2019): 787–790.
DOI: 10.1017/lsi.2019.38

Publisher page (Cambridge Core): Link
JSTOR stable URL: Link

One-line takeaway

A reply in the Miller v. Alabama symposium arguing that developmental science cannot, by itself, settle the normative and democratic questions at stake in juvenile punishment.

Overview

This short reply responds to four symposium interventions on my article, “Children, Development, and the Troubled Foundations of Miller v. Alabama.” It clarifies what is and is not being criticized in the “developmental approach” to juvenile sentencing, and it explains why disagreements about juvenile punishment cannot be resolved by empirical claims alone.

The central argument is that developmental frameworks often carry implicit normative assumptions about childhood, culpability, and responsibility. Even when researchers and advocates agree on the underlying empirical facts, those facts remain compatible with multiple narratives about what it means to be a child and what consequences should follow for punishment. The reply emphasizes that these are political and moral choices that demand democratic justification, not merely scientific line-drawing.

Central Questions

  • How “damning” is the critique of development-based sentencing doctrine?
  • What role do implicit normative assumptions play in developmental arguments about diminished culpability?
  • How should democratic obligations shape constitutional limits on juvenile punishment?

Why this matters

This reply is useful for readers interested in the interface between law and psychology, constitutional theory, and political theory, especially debates about juvenile life without parole, Eighth Amendment proportionality, and the role of expertise in legal justification.

Related pages

Suggested citation

Berk, Christopher D. 2019. “Reply to Elizabeth Scott, Laurence Steinberg, David Tanenhaus, and James Backstrom.” Law & Social Inquiry 44(3): 787–790. https://doi.org/10.1017/lsi.2019.38

[Cite with BibTeX] 

@article{berk2019reply,
  title={Reply to Elizabeth Scott, Laurence Steinberg, David Tanenhaus, and James Backstrom},
  author={Berk, Christopher D},
  journal={Law \& Social Inquiry},
  volume={44},
  number={3},
  pages={787--790},
  year={2019},
  publisher={Cambridge University Press}
}