Miranda Rights for Middle Schoolers

[groovedaddy]

In the landmark Miranda case, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution’s guarantee against self-incrimination required that police warn criminal suspects about their right to remain silent and to have a lawyer present when they are taken into custody for questioning.

Now the court has ruled in J. D. B. v. North Carolina that police need to consider a suspect’s age when deciding whether they must give him Miranda warnings.

Under earlier rulings, the court said that whether a suspect was “in custody” for Miranda purposes depended on the circumstances of the interrogation and whether a reasonable person would have felt free to leave.

In its new decision, the court concludes that age matters because a teenager is likely to think he is not free to leave an interrogation even if a reasonable adult would think otherwise.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/opinion/17fri2.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211

[LiberalFighter]

1. I'm sure most minors would think that if they did try to leave

the police would either beat the crap out of them or make them wet their pants.

[Name removed]

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