Kristi North, Recess Is Over: Granting Miranda Rights to Students Interrogated Inside School Walls

• Publication year: 2012

RECESS IS OVER: GRANTING MIRANDA RIGHTS TO STUDENTS INTERROGATED INSIDE SCHOOL WALLS

ABSTRACT

When school officials and law enforcement question students about suspicious activities without parents or legal counsel present, students are overmatched. This power imbalance raises questions about whether students’ constitutional rights are being adequately protected. These questions have gone largely unanswered, as the Supreme Court has never addressed the applicability of Miranda warnings in school interrogation settings. However, the 2011 J.D.B. v. North Carolina decision, in which the Supreme Court held a defendant’s age relevant to custody for Miranda purposes, has opened the door for a reevaluation of the dynamics of school interrogations.

This Comment argues that the mere presence of a law enforcement officer at a student’s interrogation, occurring on school grounds in the absence of legal counsel, transforms the encounter into custodial interrogation, thus requiring Miranda warnings to be given. This argument rests on two foundations: (1) scientific evidence demonstrating that adolescents’ brains are developmentally different from adults’ brains, rendering them more vulnerable to shows of authority; and (2) the coercive effect of increasing law enforcement presence on school grounds in recent decades. Students deserve Miranda’s protections when law enforcement is present during questioning because this police-dominated, inherently coercive interrogation environment is what the Miranda Court sought to protect against.

INTRODUCTION 443

1. CONSTITUTIONAL GUIDELINES FOR CUSTODIAL INTERROGATION 446

   1. The State Action Doctrine 446

   2. Protecting the Privilege Against Self-Incrimination 448

      1. Miranda v. Arizona and Its Progeny 448

      2. Defining Custodial Interrogation 450

   3. Lower Courts Grappling with Custodial Interrogation in School Settings 453

      1. Factors in Support of a Custody Finding 454

      2. Factors Influencing a No-Custody Finding 456

2. ADOLESCENTS’ VULNERABILITY TO INTERROGATIONS 459

   1. The Supreme Court’s Recent Tendency to Cite Scientific Findings 460

   2. Scientific Findings About the Susceptibility of Adolescents 462

      1. Adolescents’ Vulnerability to Make False Confessions 462

      2. Adolescents’ Brain Development Shows Immaturity of Judgment 463

      3. Adolescents’ Compliance with Demands from Authority

         Figures 467

3. UNIQUE ASPECTS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS EXACERBATE ADOLESCENTS’ VULNERABILITY DURING INTERROGATION 469

   1. Greater Cooperation Between School Officials and Law Enforcement 469

   2. Dramatic Increase in the Amount of Student Behavior

      Reported to Police 470

   3. The Adversarial Relationship Between Students and School Officials 472

   4. Students’ Restricted Freedom of Movement in Public Schools .. 474 IV. COUNTERVAILING CONCERNS 477

CONCLUSION 481

INTRODUCTION

[I]n the school environment, where juveniles are faced with a variety of negative consequences—including potential criminal charges—for refusing to comply with the requests or commands of authority figures, the circumstances are inherently more coercive and require

more, not less, careful protection of the rights of the juvenile.1

Determining what constitutional rights children have while on school grounds has always presented unique challenges for the criminal justice system. School officials seek to maintain order, implement discipline, and provide a safe place for children to learn. Yet “children assuredly do not ‘shed

their constitutional rights . . . at the schoolhouse gate.’”2

This Comment focuses on a troubling area in which students lack adequate protection—interrogation by school officials and law enforcement on school grounds without parents or legal counsel present. The Supreme Court has never decided a case addressing the applicability of Miranda warnings in school interrogation settings. In Miranda v. Arizona, the Supreme Court protected individuals’ Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination by requiring law enforcement to warn individuals of their Miranda rights when

subject to custodial interrogation,3 and this protection was later extended to

adolescents.4 Under this formula, self-incrimination protections depend on custodial status.5 For Miranda purposes, custody exists when an individual is formally arrested or has his freedom of movement restricted to the degree associated with formal arrest.6 The custody analysis is crucial because if a court finds that custody did not exist, then an individual’s Fifth Amendment

1. In re J.D.B., 686 S.E.2d 135, 147 (N.C. 2009) (Hudson, J., dissenting), rev’d and remanded sub nom.

   J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 131 S. Ct. 2394 (2011).

2. Vernonia Sch. Dist. 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 655–56 (1995) (quoting Tinker v. Des Moines Indep. Cmty. Sch. Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 506 (1969)).

3. 384 U.S. 436, 468–69 (1966). Miranda rights are the warnings given to a criminal suspect by law enforcement to protect the suspect’s privilege against self-incrimination during custodial interrogation.

   Miranda rights include the right to remain silent, the right to counsel prior to questioning, the right to have counsel present during any questioning, and the right to an appointed attorney if the individual wants an attorney and cannot afford to hire one. Id. at 467–73.

4. In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 55 (1967). The terms adolescent, child, and student are used interchangeably

   throughout this Comment to refer to a child under the age of eighteen. This Comment avoids using the term juvenile because of the word’s negative association with the criminal justice system. This Comment does not use the term teenager because this would include individuals who are eighteen or nineteen years old.

5. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444.

6. See id.; see also Berkemer v. McCarty, 468 U.S. 420, 442 (1984).

   privilege against self-incrimination is not implicated, Miranda warnings are not required, and all of his statements will be admissible in court.7

   
   

   In cases that involve interrogations conducted on public school grounds, courts must assess custody in one of four different scenarios: (1) when school officials question students independently and law enforcement is not present or involved; (2) when law enforcement is present during the questioning but does not speak or otherwise participate; (3) when law enforcement is involved in the questioning but makes a minimal contribution; or (4) when law enforcement actively participates in the questioning with the school official. Currently, most courts have a high custody threshold—finding that custody exists only when

   law enforcement actively participates in the student’s interrogation.8

   
   

   This Comment argues that the custody threshold should be lowered in the school setting because the mere presence of law enforcement is enough to create a coercive effect that requires Miranda warnings.

   
   

   In J.D.B. v. North Carolina, a case decided in 2011, the Court expanded its prior custody analysis to include the defendant’s age as a relevant factor.9 Although the Court did not decide the issue of custodial interrogation in J.D.B.,10 the Supreme Court in that case, and other recent cases like Roper v. Simmons11 and Graham v. Florida,12 extended additional constitutional protections to adolescents. Citing scientific research that details the stark developmental differences between adolescent and adult brains, the Court recognized that adolescents need special protection under certain circumstances.13

   
   

7. See Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444.

8. See infra Part I.C.1.

9 131 S. Ct. 2394, 2408 (2011). Previously, in Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 666–68 (2004), the Court declined to address the objective, reasonable person analysis to include the defendant’s age as a relevant factor. That case involved a seventeen-year-old boy. Id. at 656.

1. The Court had the opportunity to take its holding one step further by addressing how custody should be analyzed in school interrogation settings, but instead left this determination to the state court. J.D.B., 131 S.

   Ct. at 2408.

2. 543 U.S. 551, 578 (2005) (holding that the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments forbid imposing the death penalty on offenders who were under the age of eighteen when their crimes were committed).

3. 130 S. Ct. 2011, 2034 (2010) (holding that the Constitution prohibits imposing a sentence of life without parole on an adolescent who did not commit homicide). In 2012, the Supreme Court extended Graham, holding that mandatory life imprisonment without parole was unconstitutional when imposed on

   adolescent offenders, including adolescent offenders who committed homicide. Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 2460 (2012).

4. See infra Part II.A.

   This Comment argues for a natural extension of what the Court has already held by asking courts to consider how these scientific findings apply when adolescents are interrogated in the school setting. It contends that an interrogation attended by both school and law enforcement officials creates a coercive environment that turns questioning into custodial interrogation, even

   when law enforcement officials do not speak.14 In short, students will be

   overmatched by law enforcement and school officials and compelled to respond to questioning. When students are questioned in this type of environment, they must be warned of their Miranda rights.

   
   

   Part I of this Comment provides the constitutional backdrop for the custody analysis. It begins with an explanation of the state action doctrine’s relevance in the public school setting, describing which state actors are required to give Miranda warnings during custodial interrogations. Next, it discusses the constitutional protection afforded to targets of custodial interrogation by introducing Miranda and its progeny. It defines “custodial interrogation” and the test courts use to determine when it has occurred. Lastly, Part I explores the holdings and rationales of the pre-J.D.B. lower court decisions addressing school interrogation issues, analyzing the factors that supported a custody finding and influenced a no-custody finding.

   
   

   Part II focuses on the Supreme Court’s willingness to extend special protections to adolescents and its citation to...