Miranda rights for minors

It’s obvious — except to a minority of the Supreme Court — that a juvenile being questioned by the police will feel less able to get up and leave than an adult in the same situation. Adapting that reality to the requirements of the Miranda rule, a five-member majority held this week that courts must consider a suspect’s age in deciding whether he should have been read his rights. Any other decision would have been unconscionable.

The 5-4 ruling arises from the interrogation of a 13-year-old North Carolina boy suspected of committing two home break-ins. A police investigator questioned the boy in a school conference room, but he wasn’t read his rights. By adult standards, the boy wasn’t in custody, the trigger for a Miranda warning. He wasn’t under arrest, the door was unlocked and at one point the police investigator told him he could leave. But common sense suggests that a 13-year-old taken to an office and faced with not only the police but also school officials won’t feel free to leave or to refuse to answer their questions. In the end, the boy confessed to the burglaries.

Writing for the court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor cited previous rulings that support the proposition that minors are not “miniature adults.” Therefore, a child’s age is relevant to determining custody so long as it “was known to the officer at the time of the interview, or would have been objectively apparent to any reasonable officer.” As for courts, Sotomayor wrote, they must recognize that “a reasonable child subjected to police questioning will sometimes feel pressured to submit when a reasonable adult would feel free to go.”

The minority, led by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., argued that the decision undermined the principle of Miranda, which is designed to eliminate subjectivity from a determination of whether a confession is voluntary. He added that many juvenile suspects who are older teenagers would be adequately covered by a “one size fits all” standard for determining whether they were in custody. But even many juveniles in that age group lack the self-confidence of adults.

Miranda is strengthened by a recognition of the special vulnerability of minors to police questioning. And there is one specific consequence of this decision that will affect the day-to-day lives of many young people: Police are an increasing presence in schools, and disciplinary inquiries often put students at risk not only of punishment by the school but also of arrest. When the school functions as a police station, it’s important that children be told their rights.