Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative

05/06/2026

For over 50 years, the Georgetown Law Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative has been advocating with and on behalf of young people in the District of Columbia and around the country.
Today is our annual giving day. Please support our work and help us keep up the fight for another 50 years.

https://secure.advancement.georgetown.edu/s/1686/18/giving.aspx?sid=1686&gid=4&pgid=3975&cid=5816&dids=346.144&bledit=1&sort=1&unit=8&appealcode=26LG011600

06/19/2025

The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth by Georgetown Juvenile Justice Clinic & Initiative Director Professor Kristin Henning was featured on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Watch the segment on juvenile justice:

John Oliver discusses how the U.S. incarcerates kids at a higher rate than other nations, the facilities those kids are being funneled into, and how John fee...

12/12/2024

Calling all Youth Defenders! Applications for the 2025 YDAP Summer Academy are due in one month on 1/14/25. Get more information and apply at bit.ly/YDAPSA2025

03/01/2024

From Professor Kristin Henning and co-authors Candice Jones and Zoë Towns: "The good news is that we now know so much more about what actually works to reduce violent crime. Over the last three decades, we have seen how comprehensive strategies and community-rooted intervention programs help reduce violence now and create real safety for generations to come." Read the full op-ed at the link below.

Fed up by crime? Three criminology experts say D.C. is getting the fight against crime wrong.

03/01/2024

Meet our final 2024 Ambassador for Racial Justice, Emma Otterpohl!

Emma is a Senior Deputy Public Defender for the Minnehaha County Public Defender’s Office in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She graduated from Dakota Wesleyan University in 2015 with her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice, leadership, and public service.

Her first real experience with youth in the criminal justice system came while in college when she volunteered with CASA, the Court Appointed Special Advocate Program in South Dakota’s First Judicial Circuit. Emma then went on to earn her J.D. from the University of South Dakota in 2018 and started her legal career later that year at the Public Defender’s Office. She has been representing juvenile clients for four years.

Emma’s racial justice hero is Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. A legal superstar, Justice Sotomayor became the first person of Latin descent and the first woman of color to serve on the Supreme Court when she was appointed by President Obama in 2009. In addition to her valuable lived experiences, she brings intelligence, common sense, and nuance to the bench. Among Justice Sotomayor’s most famous opinions is J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 564 U.S. 261 (2011), which requires age to be considered when determining whether a child would reasonably believe that they were in custody when questioned by police. J.D.B. expanded the protections available to youth in interrogation settings.

The year-long Ambassadors for Racial Justice program, hosted by the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative and The Gault Center, supports defenders who are committed to challenging racial injustice in the juvenile legal system.

02/28/2024

Meet 2024 Ambassador for Racial Justice, Alexandra “Alex” Narvaez!

Alex is a Chicana/Latina who was born and raised in Seattle, Washington where she still lives today with her children and husband. She obtained her BA from the University of Washington and her JD from Seattle University.

She has been a staff attorney at the Legal Counsel for Youth and Children (LCYC) for the past 9 years. Prior to that, she was a public defender for 7 years. She provides holistic representation to youth in juvenile and the child welfare system. She also represents youth in at-risk youth, child in need of services, and truancy cases.

During her time with LCYC, Alex has advocated for youth applying for special immigrant juvenile status and provided civil legal aid to youth experiencing homelessness. She is the lead attorney for LCYC’s Youth Access to Counsel team. These attorneys provide 24/7 response to youth who are being interrogated by police.

Alex participated in the 2023 Youth Defender Advocacy Program’s Summer Academy. She was also a 2021 fellow for the Shriver Center Racial Justice Institute. She is a strong advocate for youth in a variety of settings and routinely works with community programs to build stable supports for youth as they work though and exit these systems.

Alex’s racial justice hero is community activist and organizer, Estela Ortega. She is the longtime Executive Director of El Centro de la Raza (The Center for People of All Races), a Seattle-based community center founded by Mexican, Chicano, and other Latiné activists in response to racial tensions and economic depression in the 1970s. El Centro provides a broad variety of services and resources to the community, including affordable housing, job skills training, English as a Second language classes, a food bank, a community garden, and more!

The year-long Ambassadors for Racial Justice program, hosted by the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative and The Gault Center, supports defenders who are committed to challenging racial injustice in the juvenile legal system.

02/26/2024

Meet 2024 Ambassador for Racial Justice, Myshell Lyday!

Myshell specializes in the representation of children and emerging adults in the criminal legal system.

A 2006 graduate of the University of Montana Law School, Myshell along with a fellow group of law and journalism students were awarded the Vern Klingman Meritorious Act Award for their work securing clemency for 78 men and women convicted, imprisoned, and fined under the Sedition Act during World War I. This project was the spark that lit the fire that continues to smolder within and drives her work.

She joined the Montana Office of the Public Defender upon graduating and has worked directly for the OPD or contracted with them throughout her career. Today her work takes her all over the State of Montana defending children and emerging adults charged with criminal offenses.

Myshell has also worked to change the system through successful legislative campaigns including eliminating all fines and fees in the Youth Court, significantly restricting restitution, and eliminating shackling for youth while in court proceedings.

Myshell continues to challenge herself by exploring creative and sustainable solutions for justice involved by examining the connection between the justice system, indigenous cultural responses, and how nature does it within our ecosystem.

Myshell’s racial justice hero is Chief Standing Bear. A chief of the Ponca tribe, Standing Bear and his people were forcibly removed from their homelands in Nebraska to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Standing Bear returned to Nebraska in violation of the law, to bury his son and was subsequently imprisoned. In 1879, he successfully argued before a federal judge that Native Americans were persons and citizens with the right to sue for their freedom.

The year-long Ambassadors for Racial Justice program, hosted by the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative and The Gault Center, supports defenders who are committed to challenging racial injustice in the juvenile legal system.

02/22/2024

Meet 2024 Ambassador for Racial Justice, Melanie Lister!

Melanie is an Assistant Public Defender with the Juvenile Division of the Travis County Public Defender’s Office in Austin, TX. She received her B.S. from Cornell University in 2008 and her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2013.

Before she transitioned to juvenile defense, Melanie held a variety of other positions related to children and families. Prior to law school, she was a teacher at an alternative school outside of New Orleans, LA. Once she graduated law school, Melanie represented parents and children in abuse and neglect proceedings and Child in Need of Services cases. Melanie has also worked as a guardian ad litem in abuse and neglect proceedings.

Since joining what was then known as the Travis County Juvenile Public Defender Office, Melanie has served as an Adjunct Professor in the Juvenile Justice Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law. She is also a certified trainer with the Gault Center’s Youth Defender and Advocacy Program and is an alum of their JTIP (now known as YDAP) Summer Academy. Melanie is passionate about ensuring her representation is not only driven by her clients but also empowers her clients. She is always searching for creative ways to bridge the gaps between community organizations, schools, and courtroom advocates in hopes that one day she may work herself out of a job.

Melanie’s racial justice hero is the educational pioneer and civil rights leader, Mary McLeod Bethune. The daughter of formerly enslaved persons, Bethune was the the consummate educator. In 1904, she opened the Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls (which eventually merged with the Cookman Institute for Men to become the HBCU Bethune-Cookman University). She became president of the Florida chapter of the National Association of Colored Women in 1924 and special advisor to President Roosevelt in 1935.

The year-long Ambassadors for Racial Justice program, hosted by the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative and The Gault Center supports defenders who are committed to challenging racial injustice in the juvenile legal system.

02/14/2024

Meet 2024 Ambassador for Racial Justice, Yasmin Davis!

Yasmin Davis is an Adolescent Intervention and Diversion Attorney at The Legal Aid Society where she specializes in the representation of juvenile and adolescent offenders in Supreme Court in the Bronx, where she was born and raised. She joined The Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense Practice in 2011 and has worked in multiple boroughs in NYC representing youth and adults in court proceedings in criminal and supreme court.

In 2014, she took a sabbatical and joined the New York State Defenders Association (NYSDA) as the Director of the Public Defense Investigation Support Project because of her passion for investigations. While at NYSDA she worked to increase the quality and quantity of investigations completed in defender offices across the state. She later returned to The Legal Aid Society in their newly formed training unit as the Trainer of Investigator and Paralegal Staff, where she did training for new attorneys, investigators and paralegals.

Prior to practicing in New York, Yasmin was a Staff Attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia where she represented clients in juvenile proceedings in D.C. Superior Court. She is a graduate of CUNY School of Law where she was on the City University of New York Law Review. Her commitment and dedication to criminal defense started long before law school when she interned at the Montgomery County Public Defender’s Office as an investigative intern while in college, leading her to work as an investigator at The Bronx Defenders for three years before attending law school.

Yasmin’s racial justice hero is Bryan Stevenson, the founder and executive director of The Equal Justice Initiative. A widely acclaimed public interest lawyer, Stevenson has dedicated his career to exonerating innocent people from death row; fighting the extreme sentencing and abuse of incarcerated people; and challenging the incarceration of children and the mentally ill. Stevenson has also worked to end poverty and racial discrimination through the creation of resources, a museum, and a memorial that shifts the narrative on race and inequality in America.

The year-long Ambassadors for Racial Justice program, hosted by the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative and The Gault Center, supports defenders who are committed to challenging racial injustice in the juvenile legal system.

02/12/2024

Meet 2024 Ambassador for Racial Justice, Jamie Bennett!

Jamie Anne Bennett is the Attorney in Charge of the Youth Advocacy Division in Worcester County, Massachusetts. She has been a public defender for 17 years, beginning with adult representation moving to youth representation in 2014.

Jamie currently supervises three attorneys and a social service advocate in her office. The Youth Advocacy Division believes in great legal AND life outcomes for its clients. Thus, YAD utilizes its social service advocate to assist in building trusting relationships and making referrals ranging from therapy treatment providers to gym memberships. Youth Advocacy Division attorneys are also trained in education advocacy for their clients.

She is the co-chair of the Worcester County JDAI Committee and the Worcester Bar Association Juvenile Law Section. She is also a Community-Based Interventions (CBI) Subcommittee Member on the Juvenile Justice Policy and Data Board. She was a founding member of the Youth Defenders Dismantling Racism committee within the Youth Advocacy Division.

Jamie loves to assist with new lawyer training and provides Know the Law training within the community. She is a friend of the board for the Massachusetts Society for a World Free of Sexual Harm by Youth (MASOC), whose mission is to ensure that children and adolescents with problematic or abusive sexual behaviors live healthy, safe, and productive lives. Jamie graduated from Bowdoin College and received her J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law.

For fun, Jamie loves to travel with her family. She is the proud mom of a 5th grade son, and she coaches him in basketball. She loves March Madness basketball and binge-watching a good show.

Jamie’s racial justice hero is Theresa Coney, a lawyer and racial justice advocate. Coney is the Racial Equity Statewide Training Lead for the Massachusetts Committee for Public Counsel Services. The first person to hold this position, Coney has developed and implemented a strategic plan to engage more than 3,000 attorneys and staff in racial justice work in public defense spaces.

The year-long Ambassadors for Racial Justice program, hosted by the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative and The Gault Center, supports defenders who are committed to challenging racial injustice in the juvenile legal system.

02/09/2024

Meet 2024 Ambassador for Racial Justice, Rachel Antonuccio!

Rachel is a graduate of Cornell College and the University of Iowa College of Law. She spent the first five years of her career in private practice in Iowa City, with a focus on juvenile law, indigent criminal defense, immigration law, and mediation.

Rachel then served as the juvenile attorney in the Iowa City Public Defender’s Office for seven years, primarily representing parents in Child in Need of Assistance and termination actions and juveniles criminally charged as adults.

At the beginning of 2021, Rachel became the supervising attorney of the Waterloo Juvenile Public Defender's Office. The office represents children in delinquencies, children and parents in Child in Need of Assistance and termination actions, and adult criminal defendants.

She currently serves on the ISBA Juvenile Law committee and the Constance Cohen Juvenile Practice Series committee. She is a member of the Iowa Supreme Court Rules of Juvenile Procedure Advisory Committee and served as co-chair of the Mental Health/Substance Abuse Subcommittee for the Iowa Supreme Court's Juvenile Justice Task Force.

Rachel created and operates the Black Hawk County Drug Diversion Program, a program for people charged with drug possession offenses that gives participants an opportunity to get treatment and get their charges dismissed and expunged. Rachel is a proud resident of Waterloo, IA, where she lives with her husband, their four-year-old daughter, and their three-year-old son.

Rachel’s racial justice hero is Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones. Perhaps best known for her work on the 1619 Project, Hannah-Jones focuses on civil rights and racial injustice. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and ProPublica. She is the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University.

The year-long Ambassadors for Racial Justice program, hosted by the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative and The Gault Center, supports defenders who are committed to challenging racial injustice in the juvenile legal system.