Harvey Schweitzer, a 1976 graduate of UCLA Law School, is an adjunct professor at Columbus School of Law, Catholic University of America where he teaches juvenile law. This webpage is provided for assistance to his students.
For more information about Attorney Harvey Schweitzer, please visit his About Us web page at Schweitzer and Scherr Law Firm’s website, www.SchweitzerLaw.net.
Contact Information
Professor Harvey Schweitzer
Welcome!
Please check out what you need here and if you can not find what you need you may e-mail Mr. Schweitzer at [email protected].
Or, you may reach him at:
O: 301 469 3382
C: 202 365 8272
Classes and Assignments Fall 2008
Juvenile Law
Full 2008 Syllabus available (PDF)
***2008 First Day of Class Information***
Tuesday 7:45-9:35 PM
This course will focus on: children’s legal status, the juvenile justice process (with attention to the transfer of juvenile offenders to adult court and the disposition (sentencing) of offenders), the representation of children in the legal system, child maltreatment, foster care and permanency for children. We will not cover parental medical decision making or child custody except as these concepts arise in the context of foster care. We will not cover issues normally covered in family law such as child support, marriage and inheritance. Once the semester is underway I will be amenable to modifications in the readings to address particular interests of the class.
Juvenile Law Assignments
Text: CHILDREN AND THE LAW DOCTRINE POLICY AND PRACTICE; Abrams & Ramsey (3d Ed. West 2007)
Suggested Paper Topics List Below – DETAILS IN PDF
Suggested Paper Topics(PDF)
This is intended to provide suggestions to those students who may want to use this class to satisfy part of their writing requirement. When choosing a topic you are NOT limited to the areas in this memo. What follows are not topics but only “areas of possible inquiry” that can encourage further analysis and may lead you to a topic. I will assist you in choosing a topic and in any event, the topic must be approved by me. The narrower the topic the better. And, if at all possible, choose a topic that interests you.
1. Informed Consent
2. When, if ever at all, is an adult with an official professional relationship with a minor female (such as a “counselor”) required to report the sexual activity of the minor.
3. Therapy and (imminent) danger to the child in therapy
4. Adolescence as a legal concept.
5. Self Reporting.
6. The “Ashley Treatment”
7. Competency and the adjudication of juveniles.
8. Do minors possess a constitutional right of privacy in their medical information?
9. What effect does adoption have on the rights of the extended family of the biological parents whose rights were cut off by the adoption?
11. Legal Rights of Children in Therapy.
12. Lawyer- Minor Client Relationship
13. Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine and Minor Females
14. Do siblings have a right to a relationship with one another?
15. Comment on J. Scalia’s Dissent in Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000)
“Only three holding of this Court rest in whole or in part upon a substantive constitutional right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children … . While I would not now overrule those earlier cases … neither would I extend the theory upon which they rested to this new context”.
16. Student First Amendment Rights
Analyze the “bong hits for Jesus” case; the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent First Amendment – student speech decision. Morse v. Frederick, 2007 U.S. Lexis 8514; No. 06-278 decided 6/25/07.
Interested books related children and law:
Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex, (U. Minn. Press 2002)
Martine Guggenheim, What’s Wrong with Children’s Rights, (Harvard U. Press 2005)
Greg Berman & John Feinblatt (with Sarah Glazer), Good Courts: The Case for Problem Solving Justice, (The New Press 2005)
Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, Hidden in Plain Sight: The Tragedy of Children’s Rights from Ben Franklin to Lionel Tate, (Princeton Univ. Press 2008)