Indiana Supreme Court Steps Up for Kids

Apropos of juvenile interrogation law, which is being revisited and discussed by court watchers as the U.S. Supreme Court weighs whether to accept sixteen-year-old Brendan Dassey’s voluntariness appeal, I received some unrelated but still very good news yesterday.

Yesterday, the Indiana Supreme Court handed down an opinion in In re B.A. that clarifies when a child being questioned by school administrators is entitled to constitutional protections, such as the Miranda rights.  Northwestern Pritzker School of Law’s Bluhm Legal Clinic – in particular, our Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth, which I co-direct along with Megan Crane – was honored to submit an amicus brief in the case, which was skillfully argued by Indiana lawyer Amy Karazos.  Our amicus brief was based in part on our staff’s electrifying experience attending a seminar held by John E. Reid & Associates at which police interrogation trainers taught school administrators how to question children using criminal interrogation techniques (that’s right, you read that correctly). 

Briefly, In re B.A. involves a thirteen-year-old child who scribbled a message in pink marker on a middle school boys’ bathroom wall in Decatur, Indiana: “I will Got A bomb in the school Monday 8^th 2016 not A Joke.”  The police were called and eventually identified thirteen-year-old B.A. as a suspect.  On the morning of Monday, February 8, 2016, the police searched the school and – after determining that there was no actual bomb – brought B.A. from the school bus to the vice-principal’s office.  There, three uniformed police officers positioned themselves near B.A. while the vice-principal questioned him.  At one point, a police officer handed B.A. written sentences and told him to copy them in order to determine whether his handwriting matched the bathroom scribble.  After about fifteen minutes, B.A. confessed, at which point his mother was telephoned and told what had occurred.  At no point was B.A. Mirandized.  Nonetheless, he was arrested, charged as a juvenile, and found delinquent.

The lower courts declined to suppress B.A.’s confession on Miranda grounds, reasoning that he had been questioned by a school administrator for “educational purposes” and thus had not been in police custody.

The Indiana Supreme Court reversed, emphasizing that juveniles should be entitled to more protections, not fewer, when being subjected to custodial interrogation -- regardless of whether that interrogation takes place in the stationhouse or schoolhouse.  Pointing out that the right against self-incrimination “reflects many of our fundamental values and most noble aspirations,” and noting that “children are particularly vulnerable to” coercion, it found that there is no “educational purpose” exception to Miranda.  Instead, it found that such an exception would “swallow the Miranda rule, leaving less protection for students than for other suspects.”  Instead, it applied a child-sensitive, sliding-scale custody test to conclude that B.A. had, in fact, been in police custody – and that he had therefore been entitled to Miranda warnings.  On that basis, it suppressed his confession and reversed his adjudication. 

To read more about the burgeoning business of training teachers and administrators to interrogate schoolchildren using criminal interrogation tactics, check out this New Yorker article documenting the practice in states around the country.  And in the meantime – well done to the Indiana Supreme Court for reaching a sound result in this case.

 

Comments

[anon]

In your view, at what age does a person cease being a "kid"?

Please, don't respond that thirteen is a kid, to any "right thinking person" and, so, therefore, the question is irrelevant.

Serious question: At what age does a person cease being a "kid" or a "child"?

[anon]

Addendum

Do you refer to students in law school as "the kids"?

[Deep State Special Legal Counsel]

At 13.