NCYL won a major case in California, securing fair and equal treatment of foster youth who play high school sports. This victory could potentially affect thousands of foster youth in the state.

David C. (formerly David C. v. Leavitt) is a child welfare reform class action brought in 1993, on behalf of all foster children and children reported as abused or neglected in the state of Utah. NCYL and Utah officials signed an agreement to end the case in May 2007. The system is now regarded as a national model.

NCYL is co-counsel in this child welfare reform class action against the California Department of Health Services, Los Angeles County’s Department of Children and Family Services, and the California Department of Social Services, seeking the establishment and implementation of a community-based mental health service delivery system for California’s children in state foster care or at imminent risk of out-of-home placement.

This writ of habeas corpus filed on January 29, 2010 on behalf of Sara Kruzan challenges her sentence of life without possibility of parole for a shooting she committed in 1994 when she was 16 years old. Her victim, the 33 year-old pimp who sexually abused her since she was 11 and trafficked her since age 13, was shot as he was preparing to instigate sex with Ms. Kruzan.

This case challenged the validity of Proposition 8, a ballot proposition passed in November 2008 which overturned the California Supreme Court’s ruling from earlier in 2008 extending to same-sex couples the right to marry. 

NCYL was one of sixteen organizations signing on to an amicus brief filed in this case supporting Savana Redding, a 13-year old student, who was strip-searched at school. 

The National Center for Youth Law join twelve other Amici organizations in this case to urge the United States Supreme Court to grant certiorari to review a 30-year mandatory minimum sentence without the possibility of parole imposed on a 12-year-old child in the State of South Carolina.  The Amici Brief analyzes why such a lengthy mandatory sentence that does not take into consideration the age of the child at the time of the offense violates the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the United States Constitution. 

The U.S. Supreme Court held that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments prohibit the execution of individuals who were under the age of 18 when they committed their crimes. In doing so, the Court recognized that significant differences in brain development exist between adolescents and adults and that these differences diminish the level of culpability of juveniles, a position advocated by the amici groups, including NCYL.