A Presumptive In-Custody Analysis to Police-Conducted School Interrogations (2013)

I. Introduction 145II. J.D.B, v. North Carolina 149III. United States Supreme Court Jurisprudence has Long Recognized a Heightened Risk of Coercion and False Confessions of Juveniles During Custodial Interrogations 152IV. The Totality of Circumstances in Police-Conducted School Interrogations Leads the Reasonable Child to Believe He Must Respond and Make Potentially False Statements 155V. The States' Juvenile Miranda Statutes and Case Precedent Provide the Appropriate Forum for Implementation of the Presumptive In-Custody Approach 161A. The Reasonable School-Aged Child Experiences Sufficient Restriction of Freedom to Support a Presumptive In-Custody Approach 164B. Amending the States' Juvenile Miranda Statutes to Include an In-Custody Presumption During Police-Conducted School Interrogations Will Alleviate the Problem of CoercedConfessions 166VI. What are the States Doing? 168A. Texas 168B. Other States 170VII. Conclusion 171I. IntroductionA child and his parent anticipate an array of experiences that the child might encounter on any given school day. Some experiences are beyond their reasonable expectation. For instance, being subjected to police questioning incident to an active police investigation is not usually within the scope of educational experiences that either the parent or the child would anticipate. Nevertheless, police questioning in the schoolhouse is becoming more common as the incidents of crimes committed by children increase.1 Because police investigations increasingly involve interrogation of child suspects in schools, consideration for their constitutional rights is crucial. While the constitutional protections afforded by the United States Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizonar2 have provided protection for adults against self-incrimination, the custodial analysis has not always afforded the same to child suspects.3 Specifically, the reasonable person's belief that he or she is free to leave police-initiated interrogations is not qualitatively the same for a child suspect.4 The special circumstances presented by the school setting further complicate the determination of what a reasonable child suspect believes when confronted with police questioning.5 Children will not likely assess the legal consequences of making statements to the police.6Additionally, the risk of self-incrimination and the evolution of legal jurisprudence to false confessions foundationally explain how even children who commit crimes are incapable of fully understanding the consequences of their actions.7 State statutes generally provide limits8 when determining a child's ability to comprehend his or her constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment, as well as the child's ability to knowingly waive them.9 Age limits are especially important when children operate under the false perception that they are not under the authority of the police, as in school interrogation situations.10 The United States Supreme Court addressed application of the Miranda custody analysis in its recent ruling, J.D.B, v. North Carolina,11 where the Court determined that age may indeed be relevant when affording children Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination during police-conducted school interrogation.12 Certainly, is when determining whether it is cruel and unusual punishment to impose the death penalty on juveniles or to impose life without parole sentencing13 based on the legally recognized theory of diminished culpability.14 The Court's age-is-relevant ruling, however, does not sufficiently protect children during in-school interrogations where they might operate under the false perception that their statements and actions are not made under the authority of the police.15 The states should therefore adopt a presumptive in-custody determination that eliminates the two-step totality of circumstances and reasonable child test. …