School Bullies--they Aren't Just Students: Examining School Interrogations and the Miranda Warning - Elizabeth A. Brandenburg

• Jurisdiction: Georgia,United States,Federal
• Publication year: 2008
• Citation: Vol. 59 No. 2

Comment

School Bullies—They Aren't Just Students: Examining School Interrogations and the Miranda Warning

I. Introduction

In the first few weeks of working at the Macon Circuit Public Defender's Office in Macon, Georgia, I represented a juvenile client who was charged with possession of a weapon on school grounds. She was a fourteen-year-old public high school student accused of bringing a knife to school. She did not mean to bring the knife to school, having that morning switched purses, and when she realized the knife was in her bag, she did not know what to do. She did not get caught with the knife in a fight, nor were there ever allegations that she was involved in an altercation with another student. Another girl saw the knife in her bag and reported it. The student was brought to the principal's office by the school resource officer. The officer participated in the ensuing interview with the student, but the principal did most of the questioning. When the officer stepped out for a moment, the principal told the student that if she confessed to bringing the knife to school, the matter would be handled at school quietly, and the student would not be referred to juvenile court. No one else was present for this part of the interrogation. The principal knew he was required to report this incident and that it would then be referred to juvenile court, and he intended to do so. The child, worried about how much trouble she could be in if the incident were referred to court, wrote out a statement, admitting that she brought the knife to school. The principal and school resource officer referred the matter to juvenile court.

When I met the student and she became my client, she told me her story, and I thought that a Miranda issue must have been involved. I researched the issue in Georgia and, in the caselaw, found a loophole that made it difficult to suppress the student's admission. I found that she could fight the use of the statement on the grounds that it was involuntary, but I recognized that the factors rendering the statement involuntary were witnessed only by the student and the principal, making the case a matter of "he said, she said." I was able to negotiate with the prosecutor for the possibility of a sentence that did not include any time in a youth detention facility in exchange for the student's admission of the charges. I informed my client of my research and how I would go about fighting the validity of the admission, but I dutifully informed her of the plea offer, including the possibility of a disposition that include time-to-serve should the court (1) rule against the student at a motion to suppress hearing and (2) find the student delinquent at an adjudicatory hearing. Aware of the probabilities of winning a motion to suppress and afraid of going to a youth detention center, the child decided to admit the charges and take the deal.¹

Working with juveniles in delinquency proceedings in Georgia can often be a tenuous and arduous process. The Juvenile Code, found in Chapter Eleven of Title Fifteen of the Official Code of Georgia Annotated ("O.C.G.A."),² is sometimes muddled and misleading. Even thirty years after the United States Supreme Court decided In re Gault,³ state legislatures and juvenile courts have struggled with the proper mode of protecting juveniles' constitutional rights, including the right against self-incrimination.

A growing area of concern for juvenile courts in Georgia is delinquency matters that have originated in the state's schools. Many of Georgia's school systems have their own police departments or school resource units that are trained and equipped to deal with discipline and criminal matters within school halls.⁴ Other functions of school officers include educating and counseling children on various issues. With the advent of prevailing police presence in schools, school officials have modified how they handle criminal matters to better collaborate with law enforcement.⁵ Accordingly, the school environment for today's children is significantly different than it was in years past. One area that is appreciably affected by the changes in the educational environment is how children are interrogated in connection with criminal matters, both by school officials and school resource officers ("SROs").

The focus of this Comment is the lack of procedures in place in Georgia for dealing with school interrogations, the dangers of coercion, and the necessity for the Miranda warning. First, this Comment examines the Miranda warning, including its purposes and requirements. Second, this Comment analyzes how Georgia deals with school interrogations. Third, this Comment analyzes how other states have dealt with school interrogations. Finally, this Comment analyzes several previously proposed solutions to the problem and then synthesizes them into a workable solution for the children of Georgia.

II. Legal Background

A. Miranda and the Fifth Amendment Right Against Self-Incrimina-tion

Children have constitutional due process rights in delinquency matters that are equal to adults' rights in criminal proceedings.⁶ One of these rights is the Fifth Amendment⁷ right against self-incrimination.⁸ In Miranda v. Arizona,"⁹ the United States Supreme Court ruled that before interrogating suspects, law enforcement officers must inform suspects in custody that they have the right to remain silent, that any statements they make can be used against them, that they have the right to consult with an attorney and have an attorney present during the interrogation, and that if they cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for them.¹⁰

The warnings are only required when the suspect is both (1) interrogated and (2) in custody.¹¹ Interrogation is the questioning of a suspect initiated by law enforcement.¹² Specifically, interrogation is "express questioning or its functional equivalent," including "any words or actions on the part of the police . . . that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response from the suspect."¹³ Therefore, volunteered statements or "threshold confessions," in which the defendant walks into the police station and confesses immediately, are not subject to the Miranda requirements.¹⁴

A suspect is "in custody" when he or she is either formally arrested or "otherwise deprived of his [or her] freedom of action in any significant way."¹⁵ The focus of the analysis is not on the subjective belief or intent of the officer, even if he or she has probable cause to arrest the suspect.¹⁶ Also, the fact that a person is the main suspect in the case is not enough to render an interrogation custodial.¹⁷ In Georgia, the custody analysis has been held to an objective standard, asking whether a reasonable person would have believed that his or her freedom was restrained in such a way that he or she could not terminate the questioning and leave.¹⁸ It is well established in the caselaw defining "interrogation" and "custody" that the two cannot exist without the presence of a law enforcement officer.¹⁹

In deciding Miranda, the Court was aiming to alleviate the inherently coercive environment that custodial interrogations create.²⁰ The main police tactic in modern interrogations is the element of privacy—isolating the suspect from society, out of his or her own comfort zone, and wearing the suspect down until he or she confesses.²¹ The Court detailed other common interrogation techniques: "good cop-bad cop," trickery, and deception.²² The Court decided that a blanket warning requirement would help counteract what goes on behind closed doors inside the interrogation room.²³ In later decisions, the Court held that a questioning does not have to be at a police station to be a custodial interrogation and that every questioning that takes place at a police station is not automatically a custodial interrogation.²⁴

In several cases, courts have found various nonpolice interrogations to be noncustodial. In Beckwith v. United States,²⁵ the Court held that a questioning by IRS agents at the suspect's home was not inherently coercive and therefore not custodial.²⁶ When confronted with an interrogation by a probation officer in Minnesota v. Murphy,²⁷ the Court likewise held that the suspect was not in custody even though he was required to attend the meeting with his probation officer.²⁸ In Baxter v. State,²⁹ the Georgia Supreme Court held that statements the defendant made to a fellow inmate who was questioning the defendant to receive leniency from law enforcement were not during a custodial interrogation because the situation was not inherently coercive.³⁰

One of the major exceptions to the requirements of Miranda is the "public safety" exception.³¹ This exception is narrower than it may sound. The United States Supreme Court pointed out, in New York v. Quarles,³² that unlike constitutional requirements concerning search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment,³³ the government cannot justify disregarding constitutional procedure with a later showing of reasonableness.³⁴ However, when the interrogation of a suspect and the subsequent confession are made under circumstances in which the primary purpose is to save the life of a victim, the confession of a suspect who has not received a Miranda warning is admissible.³⁵

To illustrate, the facts of Quarles involved a rape in which the defendant was allegedly armed with a gun. When police officers arrived on the scene, they chased the suspect and caught him inside a store. One officer ordered the suspect to stop; the officer frisked him and found he was wearing an empty shoulder holster. After handcuffing the suspect, the officer asked where the gun was located.³⁶ The suspect indicated a nearby rack, and said, "'[T]he gun is over there.'"³⁷ In this case, the police officer was dealing with a crime involving a gun and an empty holster. He found the suspect in a public place and needed to know where the gun was in order to...