Brain Science, Teenagers, and Texas & U.S. Court System 

Is the Texas  and U.S>  court system fair to require teenagers to file legal motions challenging complex legal issues -when modern brain science states the prefrontal cortex is not fully formed until the age of 25? Do lawyers really need 8 years of education or should we start requiring attorneys to obtain a degree in 1 year also? 

 

How is it fair for a teenager to be forced to learn the law, navigate the legal system, and file legal appeals all within 1 year - yet attorneys have nearly 8 years to figure out the basics?

 

The U.S. justice system requires an individual to file all legal remedies within 1 year from the time of conviction or forever forfeit ANY claim -regardless of how legitimate the claim(s) might be.

 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN ?

This means that you can come to prison as a teenager, knowing your rights were violated and that your trial was not fair, but not fully grasp exactly what rights were violated or how. In some instances, the court will appoint you an attorney who may simply try to convince you that no "real" rights were violated but he\she will try "something" which ends up as a half concocted motion that is denied as being meritless as this attorney's attempt to help.  

 

In rare instances - when someone is lucky and has a small amount of funds, you can even hire your own attorney who will research and file a motion for you. This paid attorney assures you that all the violations have been found, yet you are still denied as filing something that has no merit. He is a lawyer and you trust him -you only have had 1 year anyway - what else could you do? It isn't until years later that it was discovered that he failed to follow even basic rules of the court in this case.

 

Keiths thoughts....

 

"As you acclimate yourself into a hostile prison system and learn subtle rules of survival about what is acceptable, you grow from a teenager into a young adult and begin to spend more time trying to learn the law all without instruction (lawyers tend to have 8 years of college by graduation ,all with tutelage and guidance from other attorneys along the way ) while continuing to live in and adverse environment and figure it out.

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Imagine yourself in my case...After several years of studying - you begin to identify the actual rights that were violated and how these rights violations directly resulted in your being convicted of a crime you didn't commit OR of being convicted of a crime of a more serious magnitude which resulted in such a lengthy sentence for you.

 

By the time this occurs - 8 years or so have passed, similar to the years it takes for a lawyer to obtain his degree..and so you attempt to explain to the court all of the valid reasons, that the conviction was invalid ... and the court looks at what is explained and actually agreed that you shouldn't even be convicted. However, the law gives you only one year to figure all of that out. So you must stay in prison anyways.

 

You further attempt to explain the honorable court that you were just a child at the time and how could you possibly have known the laws of the court within 1 year, and further you relied on an attorney who told you that he had addressed all the issues. You followed the rules and trusted the attorney - what else were you supposed to do ? 

 

The judge just smiles and says you should hire a better attorney but I thought they all performed at a certain standard at least. I suppose it will just have to be my own fault for not being able to fit an 8 year education into my given 1.

 

I stated,  ' But your Honor these are all Constitutional Violations and without these restrictions I could have have proven my innocence.

 

The judge agrees again and replied with "Sorry,I know you were just a teenager, but this is the law and those were your given rights at the time." And somehow the injustice law was more important than the truth.

 

 

 

Would you consider this injustice? Or how do you believe justice was served?