Students, alumni, and faculty at Syracuse University College of Law spent this year analyzing police use of handcuffs during investigatory stops. Crandall Melvin Professor of Law Lauryn Gouldin, and co-authors Jocelyn Anctil L’26, Nick Marasco L’25, Bess Murad L’26, and 2L Molly Smith will publish their article, “Handcuffing Children,” with the Georgetown Law Journal Online this fall.
What began as a response to a local incident evolved into a multi-stage effort involving public advocacy, policy reform, and scholarly contribution, showcasing the depth and impact of Syracuse Law’s experiential learning model.
The handcuffing project originated in early 2025 following a widely circulated video showing an 11-year-old girl in Syracuse being placed in handcuffs during an investigatory stop. The incident prompted immediate legal inquiry by faculty, alumni, and students in the College of Law’s Criminal Law and Policy Lab, a course offered with support from the Syracuse University Meredith Professorship program. Under Gouldin’s leadership, students began a sustained examination of the constitutional limits governing police conduct, particularly as applied to children. Rather than treating the event as an isolated occurrence, the team approached it as a case study revealing broader tensions between law enforcement practices and Fourth Amendment protections.
The initiative first took public form when Gouldin, alumnus Martin Feinman L’83, and Syracuse Law students Anctil, Megan Hartman L’26, and Marasco L’25drafted an opinion piece arguing that automatically handcuffing individuals (particularly children) during investigative stops violates the Fourth Amendment.
Building on that public-facing work, Anctil and Murad co-authored a comprehensive report with Gouldin that was presented to the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Office in February. The report provided concrete policy recommendations to align local law enforcement practices with established legal standards, emphasizing that even well-intentioned officer safety measures must be justified by the facts of a particular situation. As the report explains, the project was designed to “contribute meaningfully to the ongoing dialogue about how to balance officer and community safety against the rights and well-being of individuals, specifically young people.”
The research and advocacy did not stop at the local level. Expanding their analysis to evaluate the national landscape, the team of faculty and Syracuse Law students (Gouldin, Anctil, Marasco, Murad, and Smith) worked together to produce a full-length law review article. Handcuffing Children situates the Syracuse incident within a broader national pattern of similar encounters and provides a comprehensive doctrinal analysis of the constitutional limits on handcuffing during investigatory stops. Drawing on case law from federal courts across the country, the authors conclude that automatically handcuffing suspects, particularly minors, during such stops violates the Fourth Amendment.
“This has been an especially rewarding partnership with engaged alumni experts and motivated student researchers who produced important policy recommendations and high-caliber scholarship that will reach a national audience,” says Gouldin. “This work exemplifies the College of Law’s commitment to experiential learning, where students do not simply study legal doctrine but actively apply it to real-world problems with tangible impact.”
The work will continue into the coming academic year, when participating students, alumni, and faculty will present a panel discussion in Fall 2026 examining the project’s development—from its origins in a local incident to its impact on public advocacy, policy reform, and national scholarship—offering insight into both the substance of the work and the role of experiential learning in shaping future legal leaders.