Court Opinion

ID: 9466006
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:02:39.08951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:29.455956
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The Anglo-American legal system has long recognized the reduced capacity of minors to make reasonable decisions on their own behalf, as a result of their immaturity and lack of experience. The majority necessarily concludes that the minor in the instant case had the capacity to make an informed judgment regarding the waiver of important Fifth Amendment rights. But the record does not establish that he possessed such a capacity. I dissent because I believe the government failed to demonstrate that the minor was himself capable of waiving these important constitutional safeguards.
One of the teachings of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), 4s that the waiver of Fifth Amendment rights must be knowing and intelligent in order to be valid. See id. at 475, 479, 86 S.Ct. 1602. The government bears the heavy burden of showing that such a waiver occurred. Id. The recitation of Fifth Amendment rights to a suspect helps ensure that a decision to waive those rights is an informed one. However, such a recitation will ensure nothing if the suspect is incapable of making an intelligent judgment on the subject.
A waiver cannot be knowing and intelligent unless the suspect has the requisite capacity. Incapacity should be presumed in the case of a minor. Absent parental assistance or a showing of some special circumstance, a child’s decision to waive Fifth Amendment safeguards should not be considered a valid waiver.1
The Supreme Court recently had before it a case involving waiver by a minor of his Fifth Amendment rights. Fare v. Michael C.,—U.S.—, 99 S.Ct. 2560, 61 L.Ed.2d 197 (1979). In weighing the ability of the juvenile in Fare to make an intelligent decision regarding Fifth Amendment rights, the Court noted that the minor had enjoyed considerable experience with the police, had been arrested on several occasions, and had been subject to probationary supervision for several years. The record in that case thus suggested that the minor was experienced enough to make intelligent decisions in response to the recitation of Miranda warnings. No such indication is provided by the record in the instant case.
The government makes much of the fact that the Navajo boy in this case was 17 years old, but all this shows is that he is presumed incapable, as a minor, of exercising full-scale judgment on his own behalf. I do not believe that a voluntary waiver of rights under Miranda was shown by the mere facts that he was 17, that his rights were read to him, and that he claimed he understood them. In the absence of proof of some special circumstance like that present in Fare, I believe the defendant could have voluntarily waived his rights under Miranda only following parental consultation. Defendant’s mother testified that she sought to be present at her son’s interrogation.2 This was not permitted.
*69The record in this case demonstrates the difference that advice- and counsel from a parent can make. Defendant had entered a plea of guilty. Following consultation with her son, Mrs. Pierce requested that he be allowed to stand trial. The court then allowed the plea to be withdrawn. Agent Tarazón indicated his own awareness of the difference parental involvement can make. According to Mrs. Pierce, he told her she could not be present at her son’s interrogation because “if I was there, he might not tell the truth or he might not speak.”3 Record, vol. 3, at 161.
Defendant had a right “not [to] speak.” The government has not met its burden of showing that the purported waiver by defendant of that right was voluntary, for it has not shown that defendant possessed the capacity to make the requisite judgment. The defendant’s custodial statements should not have been received into evidence. I would reverse.

. For an insightful commentary on familial imperatives and children’s rights, see Hafen, Children’s Liberation and the New Egalitarianism: Some Reservations About Abandoning Youth to Their "Rights,” 1976 B.Y.U.L.Rev. 605.

. No finding was made that Mrs. Pierce’s testimony was not credible. Such a finding is not implicit in the trial court’s judgment.

. See note 2, supra.