Opinion ID: 2175904
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The significance of J.M.'s youth.

Text: In determining whether J.M.'s consent to the search and frisk was valid, we find it instructive to consider the treatment which the law accords to other important decisions made by a boy of fourteen. To be sure, we live in an era when many youngsters of J.M.'s age differ from their counterparts of a generation ago. Some of them fire UZI automatic weapons rather than playing stickball. See, e.g., In re L.J., 546 A.2d 429 (D.C.1988). Nevertheless, if J.M. had agreed, without any pressure of any kind having been placed on him, to buy something from Detective Zattau, he could not have been compelled to honor his agreement. The law renders an infant's contracts unenforceable to protect infants from improvident bargains and injustice. Hurwitz v. Barr, 193 A.2d 360 (D.C.1963). [13] As the court stated in Bonner v. Moran, 75 U.S.App.D.C. 156, 157, 126 F.2d 121, 122 (1941), [i]n deference to common experience, there is general recognition of the fact that many persons by reason of their youth are incapable of intelligent decision, as the result of which public policy demands legal protection of their personal as well as their property rights. The universal law, therefore, is that a minor cannot be held liable on his personal contracts or contracts for the disposition of his property. Minority is in itself a badge of incompetency to handle one's own affairs. Hampton v. Ewert, 22 F.2d 81, 86 (8th Cir.1927), cert. denied, 276 U.S. 623, 48 S.Ct. 303, 72 L.Ed. 737 (1928); Dixon v. United States, 197 F.Supp. 798, 803 (W.D.S.C.1961). In the absence of bad faith the doctrine of waiver does not apply to an infant, nor can he [or she] consent to the violation of his [or her] rights.... Dixon, supra, 197 F.Supp. at 803 (quoting 31 Corpus Juris 1008). A decision to consent to a police search has consequences for a juvenile at least as grave as those facing the purchaser of a motor scooter. Nevertheless, the cited authorities, derived from other areas of the law, have not resulted in the adoption of a doctrine that a minor has no capacity to admit to an offense. When the police, during custodial interrogation, properly advise a juvenile in conformity with Miranda, for example, a voluntary statement made thereafter is admissible in evidence, provided that the court finds, after considering the juvenile's age, experience, education, background and intelligence, that he or she has the capacity to understand the warnings given him, the nature of his Fifth Amendment rights, and the consequences of waiving those rights. Fare v. Michael C., 442 U.S. 707, 725, 99 S.Ct. 2560, 2572, 61 L.Ed.2d 197 (1979). Moreover, this court has declined to embrace a per se doctrine holding invalid any statement of a juvenile which was made in the absence of a parent or counsel, because such a rule would sacrific[e], in many cases ..., the vital interests underlying the policies and goals of the juvenile court system. In re J.F.T., 320 A.2d 322, 324 (D.C.1974). But even where Miranda warnings have been given, great care must be taken to ensure that a juvenile's statement is voluntary. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 55, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 1458, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967); In re W.B.W., 397 A.2d 143, 145 (D.C.1979). Juveniles are not simply treated as smaller adults. As a four-Justice plurality of the Supreme Court stated in Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 599, 601, 68 S.Ct. 302, 303-04, 92 L.Ed. 224 (1948), in setting aside the conviction of a fifteen-year-old boy who had confessed to murder during prolonged custodial interrogation, [w]hat transpired would make us pause for careful inquiry if a mature man were involved. And when, as here, a mere childan easy victim of the lawis before us, special care in scrutinizing the record must be used. Age 15 is a tender and difficult age for a boy of any race. He cannot be judged by the more exacting standards of maturity. That which would leave a man cold and unimpressed can overawe and overwhelm a lad in his early teens. This is the period of great instability which the crisis of adolescence produces.       But we are told that this boy was advised of his constitutional rights before he signed the confession and that, knowing them, he nevertheless confessed. That assumes, however, that a boy of fifteen, without aid of counsel, would have a full appreciation of that advice and that on the facts of this record he had a freedom of choice. We cannot indulge those assumptions. Moreover, we cannot give any weight to recitals which merely formalize constitutional requirements. Formulas of respect for constitutional safeguards cannot prevail over the facts of life which contradict them. In Gallegos v. Colorado, 370 U.S. 49, 82 S.Ct. 1209, 8 L.Ed.2d 325 (1962), a boy of fourteenthe same age as J.M.confessed to his part in a robbery and homicide while in police custody for five days. There was no prolonged interrogation, but the boy had no contact with his mother or with counsel. In holding that his confession was improperly obtained, the Court stated that a 14-year-old boy, no matter how sophisticated, is unlikely to have any conception of what will confront him when he is made accessible only to the police. Id. at 54, 82 S.Ct. at 1212. The Court went on to express the view that young Gallegos cannot be compared with an adult in full possession of his senses and knowledgeable of the consequences of his admissions. He would have no way of knowing what the consequences of his confession were without advice as to his rightsfrom someone concerned with securing him those rightsand without the aid of more mature judgment as to the steps he should take in the predicament in which he found himself.       Without some adult protection against this inequality, a 14-year-old boy would not be able to know, let alone assert, such constitutional rights as he had. To allow this conviction to stand would, in effect, be to treat him as if he had no constitutional rights. Id. at 54-55, 82 S.Ct. at 1212-13. Accord, In re Gault, supra, 387 U.S. at 45-54, 87 S.Ct. at 1453-58; see also Taylor v. United States, 380 A.2d 989, 992 n. 6 (D.C.1977) (a juvenile defendant's age is one of the factors which should weigh heavily in a consideration of the circumstances of a confession); cf. In re T.T.T., 365 A.2d 366, 369 (D.C.1976) (juvenile's familiarity or lack thereof with the criminal justice system is accorded weight in determining voluntariness of confession). Persons dealing with infants must take notice of their privileges and disabilities. Dixon, supra, 197 F.Supp. at 803. This obligation applies with equal force to the police; [t]he need for special treatment begins at the instant the juvenile is contacted by peace officers.... State v. Shaw, 93 Ariz. 40, 47, 378 P.2d 487, 491 (1963) (en banc). As the Supreme Court of Arizona recently remarked in State v. Carrillo, 156 Ariz. 125, 136, 750 P.2d 883, 894 (1988) (en banc), the police are not permitted to take advantage of the impoverished, the mentally deficient, the young, or the inexperienced by employing artifices or techniques that destroy the will of the weakest but leave the strong, the tough, and the experienced untouched. The court went on to explain that the propriety of the investigative and interrogation techniques used must be judged in light of what the police knew or should have known about defendant's ability to comprehend the events and circumstances surrounding him or her. The police cannot treat an uneducated, retarded suspect in the same manner as they might treat a sophisticated businessman or professional suspected of white collar crime. Id. at 137, 750 P.2d at 895. Carrillo concerned the voluntariness of a confession but, as Professor LaFave has written following a discussion of that opinion, [t]he same conclusion is appropriate regarding police efforts to obtain consent to conduct a search. 3 LAFAVE, supra, § 8.2, at 32 (1991 Supp.). If a confession by a juvenile following a Miranda warning is subject to rigorous scrutiny, then this must surely be even more true of a consent to a search which was given without any explanation of rights. Under these circumstances, it has been suggested by a distinguished IJA-ABA Commission which was chaired by Judge Irving R. Kaufman and which included Justice Tom Clark, retired, that an appropriate constitutional standard for juveniles is [arguably] that they cannot give a voluntary consent unless they are informed of their right to refuse consent. This suggests that the test rejected by the Court in Schneckloth should be adopted for juveniles, given the greater likelihood of their lack of sophistication and their greater susceptibility to apparent or real coercion. In other words, this may be an example of an area where, because of greater vulnerability, due process may require greater rights for juveniles than for adults. INSTITUTE OF JUDICIAL ADMINISTRATION & AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION, JOINT COMMISSION ON JUVENILE JUSTICE STANDARDS, Police Handling of Juvenile Problems § 3.2(a), at 67 (1980). The IJA-ABA Standards were approved by the ABA's House of Delegates. [14] In its landmark decision on the rights of juveniles, the Supreme Court described as authoritative, and gave respectful consideration to, standards adopted by comparable organizations. In re Gault, supra, 387 U.S. at 49, 56-57 & n. 98, 87 S.Ct. at 1455, 1458-59 & n. 98. Children in our society are supposed to obey adults. Habitually disobedient juveniles can, in effect, be prosecuted as children in need of supervision, and restrictions may be placed upon their liberty. D.C.Code §§ 16-2301(8), 16-2320(c)-(d) (1989). Stubborn juveniles may constitutionally be punished for refusing to submit to the lawful commands of adults with responsibility over them. See, e.g., Commonwealth v. Brasher, 359 Mass. 550, 551-59, 270 N.E.2d 389, 391-95 (1971). Since police officers, as the trial judge noted, carry with them an intrinsic air of authority, and since even adults rarely feel that they can refuse to answer a police officer's question and simply walk away, see generally Lawrence v. United States, 566 A.2d 57, 60-61 & n. 7 (D.C.1989) and authorities there cited, a fourteen-year-old boy confronted by police officers cannot ordinarily be expected to know that he is free to disregard a police request to search him or her, especially when the encounter occurs at 2:30 a.m. on a crowded bus in a strange town far from home and family. In light of these realities, the views expressed by the IJA-ABA Commission tend to ring true in the world as it really exists (as opposed to an imaginary society in which everyone who boards a bus, no matter how young or uneducated, is a budding constitutional lawyer). The directive that courts be earthy about encounters between citizens and officers, see Cooper v. United States, 368 A.2d 554, 557 (D.C.1977), should be a two-edged sword, which may be invoked by a citizen attempting to vindicate constitutional rights as well as by the constable seeking to restrict the citizen's liberty. See Lawrence, supra, 566 A.2d at 63. Nevertheless, we are not prepared to hold that a consent by a juvenile to a search is invalid in all cases unless he or she has been advised of the right to refuse consent. Advice of rights is unnecessary if the prosecution can prove that the consenting individual is aware of them. Johnson, supra, 68 N.J. at 353, 346 A.2d at 68. Moreover, Schneckloth commands us to consider all of the circumstances, and does not encourage the adoption of ironclad rules based on only some of the relevant facts. To use considerable license in paraphrasing George Orwell, however, not all circumstances are equal, and some circumstances are more equal than others. [15] In Schneckloth, supra, 412 U.S. at 226, 93 S.Ct. at 2047, and Mendenhall, supra, 446 U.S. at 558-59, 100 S.Ct. at 1879-80, the Supreme Court placed considerable emphasis both on the defendant's age, education and experience, see also Haley, supra, 332 U.S. at 598-601, 68 S.Ct. at 303-05, and Gallegos, supra, 370 U.S. at 52-54, 82 S.Ct. at 1211-13, and on whether or not he or she has been advised of the right not to consent. Accord, Bostick, supra, ___ U.S. at ____, 111 S.Ct. at 2383-85. That approach is consistent with the court's traditional protection of children from over-reaching by adults in a wide variety of situations. Accordingly, we hold that where a juvenile, especially one as young as J.M., has not been advised of his rights, the burden on the prosecutor to establish that consent to a search was a voluntary one is a heavy one, which cannot be sustained by showing only that no weapons were displayed and that no threats were made. In the absence of proof that a juvenile of that age had sufficiently extensive prior experience with the law or the police to compensate, in the real world, for the greater maturity and worldly wisdom of an adult, we think that a purported consent to search under circumstances comparable to those presented by this record should ordinarily be invalidated.