Opinion ID: 2514450
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination applies in juvenile certification proceedings

Text: The Fifth Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment and directs that [n]o person ... shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. [11] This privilege against self-incrimination has been broadly applied and generously implemented by the United States Supreme Court [12] and has long been interpreted to mean that a defendant may refuse to answer official questions put to him in any ... proceeding, civil or criminal, formal or informal, where the answers might incriminate him in future criminal proceedings. [13] Moreover, the United States Supreme Court has unequivocally extended the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to juveniles in delinquency proceedings. [14] In the 1967 case In re Gault, which involved a guilt-determination delinquency proceeding, the Court explained that the availability of the [Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination] does not turn upon the type of proceeding in which its protection is invoked, but upon the nature of the statement or admission and the exposure which it invites. The privilege may, for example, be claimed in a civil or administrative proceeding, if the statement is or may be inculpatory. [15] The Gault opinion thus indicates that statements made by juveniles in detention may be of the nature that would trigger Fifth Amendment protection: It would be entirely unrealistic to carve out of the Fifth Amendment all statements by juveniles on the ground that these cannot lead to criminal involvement. In the first place, juvenile proceedings to determine delinquency, which may lead to commitment to a state institution, must be regarded as criminal for purposes of the privilege against self-incrimination. To hold otherwise would be to disregard substance because of the feeble enticement of the civil label-of-convenience which has been attached to juvenile proceedings.... In addition, apart from the equivalence for this purpose of exposure to commitment as a juvenile delinquent and exposure to imprisonment as an adult offender, the fact of the matter is that there is little or no assurance ... in most if not all of the States, that a juvenile apprehended and interrogated by police ... will remain outside of the reach of adult courts as a consequence of the offense for which he has been taken into custody. [16] Accordingly, the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination applies to inculpatory statements made in juvenile proceedings.