The Greenhalgh Student Writing Competition

This Competition is sponsored by Criminal Justice (“Section”) of the American Bar Association (“ABA”), 321 N. Clark Street, Chicago, IL 60654 (the “Sponsor”). The goal of the Competition is to encourage law students to become involved in the Section. It is also intended to attract students to the Criminal Justice practice field, and to encourage scholarship in this field. Each entrant must follow the rules of the competition detailed herein.

Eligibility

The contest is open to students who, on the date the entry is submitted, attend and are in good standing at an ABA-accredited law school within the United States and its possessions. Membership in the Criminal Justice Section is not a requirement. Entrants must be at least 21 years of age and legal permanent residents or citizens of the United States. Employees, officers, directors of the ABA and members of their immediate families are not eligible.

2025 Competition Topic

Recently, prosecutors have been criminally charging parents of children who commit school shootings with involuntary manslaughter. This makes parents who were not involved with either the scienter or the acts of the killings criminally liable for their child’s offense on a theory of bad parenting, furnishing the weapons, or failing to intervene, among others. It is a fast-expanding and cutting-edge prosecution trend responding to the inability to regulate guns or otherwise stop the epidemic of school and other mass shootings by children. But this development also has far-reaching socio-economic and parental rights implications.

There are three main issues for you to address:

First, briefly note the pros and cons of public policy concerns that are generated by these prosecutions.

Second, criminal liability imposed on parents or others for the acts of children raises far more challenging legal implications. Therefore, the focus of your article should be on the legal concerns that these prosecutions raise. Identify several examples of third-party liability for the criminal acts of children—at least one of those should be parent(s), though it may include others such as counselors, school administrators, or school officers or security, among others. For each, discuss how criminal liability can lie on that defendant for acts committed by a child, including how the mental state (mens rea) and criminal acts (actus reus) are established.

Third, propose how far these types of prosecutions should or should not go – where should prosecutors draw the line at prosecuting a person for third party liability of a child’s criminal acts? You may want to use your examples to identify where such liability would go too far. Be sure to discuss criminal law-based reasons for your proposals, which may include whether there are any state or criminal constitutional provisions that support or go against
your proposals.

Clear, persuasive, and original analytical reasoning that is well-supported with concrete examples and references is essential and will weigh heavily in the determination of the contest winner.

Judging

A winning entry will contain an original discussion of the selected topic, will be substantively accurate and supported by citations, and will be grammatically correct, concise, well-reasoned, and clearly written. Entries will be judged based on the following criteria: (1) writing quality; (2) analysis and legal reasoning; (3) originality; (4) quality and use of research; and (5) compliance with these Rules. The Section reserves the right not to award a prize if, in the judgment of the Criminal Justice magazine editorial board’s judging panel, no entry meets these conditions. The decision of the editorial board is final.

Notification of winner: The winner will be notified by August 31, 2025, 11:59 pm CST. If a potential winner does not respond within 30 days after ABA’s first attempt to contact him or her, or if the contact is returned as non-deliverable, the potential winner forfeits all rights to be named as winner or receive a prize, and an alternate winner may be chosen.

Prize

The winner will receive a $2,500 cash prize that may be presented at an agreed-upon CJS event with approved transportation costs not to exceed $800 to be covered by the Section. The winner is solely responsible for taxes on both the cash prize and reimbursed travel. The winner will be required to submit a completed IRS Form W-9, affidavit of eligibility, tax acknowledgment and liability release for tax purposes as a condition to receiving the cash prize. All forms must be completed and returned via email to Mitzy Reid at [email protected] within ten (10) business days of receipt or prizes will be considered forfeited and another winner may be named. The decision of the Sponsor is final. In addition, the winner’s law school will receive a plaque from the ABA’s Criminal Justice Section. At the sole discretion of the editorial board, the winning entry may be selected for publication in Criminal Justice magazine, subject to editing. The Sponsor may substitute a prize of equal or greater value in its sole discretion. Prizes are non-transferable and cannot be substituted by the winner. If his or her entry is selected for publication, the winner will be required to sign the standard ABA copyright agreement warranting the entry’s originality and granting the ABA first publication rights. Please note: the ABA must have the first right of publication of the selected essay.

All entrants: Receive one year’s free full membership in the Criminal Justice Section.

Submission Guidelines

Conditions: Only original and unpublished papers are eligible. Papers prepared for law school credit are eligible provided they are the entrant’s original work. Jointly authored papers are not eligible. Participants are encouraged, but not required, to have their work reviewed and critiqued by a faculty member or practicing lawyer, although the submission must be the student’s own work product. Section officers, section staff, Criminal Justice magazine editorial board members, and selection committee members shall not participate in the review/critique process. A student may submit only one entry per contest year.

Format: Entries cannot exceed 4,000 words, including titles, text, and citations. Entries must be submitted in Word as an e-mail attachment. Entries should reflect the style and format of Criminal Justice magazine, including citations that are embedded in text. Entries with footnotes or endnotes will not be accepted. Citations must conform to the 21st edition of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation.

Submission – All Entries: Two title pages are required. The first title page must include:

1. Title of paper;
2. Author’s name (and the name of reviewing faculty member/practicing lawyer, if applicable);
3. Telephone number(s), mailing address(es), and e-mail address(es) where author can be reached June-August 2025;
4. Name of law school;
5. Year of expected graduation;
6. Date submitted for academic credit (if applicable); and
7. Entrant’s personal certification of good standing at the law school.

The second title page should include only:

1. Title of paper and
2. Last four (4) digits of the author’s phone number.

Deadline

All entries must be received by the editor no later than July 1, 2025, 11:59 pm CST. Faxed entries will not be accepted. The sponsors are not responsible for late, lost, or misdirected entries, or for computer errors or technical failures.

Send entries to Erin Remotigue, Editor, Criminal Justice Magazine, American Bar Association, via electronic submission by e-mail to [email protected].

Release & Grant of Rights

Release: By participating, each entrant agrees to these Official Rules and the decisions of the Sponsor, and releases and discharges the ABA, subsidiary and affiliated entities, and each of their respective officers, directors, members, employees, independent contractors, agents, representatives, successors and assigns (collectively “Sponsor”) from any and all liability whatsoever in connection with this promotion, including without limitation legal claims, costs, injuries, losses or damages, demands or actions of any kind (including without limitation personal injuries, death, damage to, loss or destruction of property, rights of publicity or privacy, defamation, or portrayal in a false light) (collectively “Claims”). Except where prohibited, acceptance of a prize constitutes a release by any winner of the Sponsor of any and all Claims in connection with the administration of this promotion and the use, misuse, or possession of any prize. All entries become the property of Sponsor and will not be acknowledged or returned. Sponsor is not responsible for errors or for lost, late, or misdirected mail or email, or telecommunication or hardware or software failures, including by reason of any bug or computer virus or other failure. Sponsor may cancel, modify, or terminate the promotion if it is not capable of completion as planned, including by reason of infection by computer virus, tampering, unauthorized intervention, force majeure, or technical difficulties of any kind.

Warranty and Representation: By submitting an entry to the ABA CJS Magazine, the author warrants and represents that the work is original, that he or she has included no material in violation of any rights of any other person or entity, and that the work does not represent another's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions without appropriate credit or attribution. A finding of plagiarism in an entry will automatically disqualify the entry. The ABA prohibits the use of all generative artificial intelligence, including large language models, to create any portion of a contestant’s written submission for this competition whether in the research, writing, or editing phase. Generative AI in this context includes, but is not limited to, OpenAI’s “GPT” series, BLOOM, Jasper, BERT, Galactica, and Lex. Note that for these purposes, AI does not include basic tools for checking grammar, spelling, references, etc. Upon submission of the work product, contestants must affirm that they did not utilize AI in the preparation of their written work product. The ABA reserves the right to screen submissions for use of AI through an AI detector. Contestants utilizing AI to generate their work product in whole or in part will be disqualified. If it is determined after the winner is announced and the prize is awarded that the winning contestant utilized AI to generate the written submission in whole or in part, then the contestant will forfeit the winning designation and shall return the prize. A new winner will then be selected.

License/grant of rights: By entering, the winning entrant consents to the publication of her/his entry by the ABA, understands that such publication is not guaranteed, and grants the ABA the following rights: (1) the exclusive worldwide right of first publication of their entry in any and all ABA media or form of communication; (2) the non-exclusive worldwide right, in ABA’s sole discretion, to use, transcribe, publish reproduce, distribute, sell (as part of an ABA publication) or display the entry, alone or in conjunction with other materials; (3) the right to edit the essay to conform to the publication’s standards of style, technological requirements, language, grammar and punctuation, provided the meaning of the essay is not materially altered; and (4) the non-exclusive worldwide right to use the winner’s name and likeness in connection with the essay or this Competition, in each case, without further compensation. Additionally, the winning entrant must execute a separate publication agreement giving the ABA the publication rights enumerated above and the right to use the article for any other purpose related to the ABA mission. If the winner fails to sign the agreement within ten (10) business days of receipt, the prize will be considered forfeited and another winner may be named.

Announcement of Winners

For a list of prize winners, send a self-addressed stamped envelope by December 1, 2025, to the Section of Criminal Justice, American Bar Association, 321 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL 60654.

Odds of winning: Chances of winning may vary depending on the number of entries. However, Sponsor reserves the right not to award any prize if the judges determine that no entries are of sufficient quality to merit selection that year.

Laws and regulations: This contest is governed by U.S. law and all relevant federal, state, and local laws and regulations apply. By entering, all participants agree that the competition shall be governed by the laws of the State of Illinois, that the courts of Illinois shall have exclusive jurisdiction, and that Cook County, Illinois shall be the venue for any dispute or litigation relating to or arising from the competition. Void where prohibited by law.

Opt-out option: Any individual may elect to opt out of receiving future contest mailings by calling the ABA Service Center at 800-285-2221.

Privacy policy/data collection: Information provided by entrants in connection with this sweepstakes is subject to Sponsor’s privacy policy.

Sponsor: American Bar Association, Criminal Justice Section, 321 N. Clark St., Chicago, IL 60654.

Questions?

E-mail or call the editor at (312) 988-6089. For more information about the Section, programs for law students, and Criminal Justice magazine, visit Criminal Justice Section.

Entries will not be returned, though authors retain their rights to their work.

Recent Winners

2023: Nina-Simone Edwards, Georgetown University Law Center

2022: Blade Allen, University of New Mexico School of Law

2021: Erik Zimmerman, University of Chicago Law School 

2020: Kent Steinberg, University of Virginia School of Law 

2019: Michael dePascale Jr., Roger Williams University School of Law 

2018: Michael Lynn, the John Marshall Law School

2017: Olivia Castillo, University of Miami School of Law