Police Interrogation Case Study

In a recent Supreme Court ruling from the case of J.D.B. v. North Carolina established age is a factor that must be considered during a police interrogation (Mears, 2011). Furthermore, J.D.B. was a thirteen-year-old special needs student, and a burglary suspect, who was questioned by the police at school. Additionally, J.D.B. was not provided Miranda warnings before the police began interrogation (Mears, 2011). The Supreme Court determined that a child in placed in the situation would feel compelled to answer police questions, whereas an adult would feel free to leave (Mears, 2011). Since we possess a general background of the case let us further examine some additional key facts and issues beginning with was interrogation considered custodial.
During school J.D.B. was escorted by a uniformed school resource officer from his classroom to a conference room where two detectives questioned him for a half-hour (Dwyer, 2011). Subsequently, J.D.B. legal guardian was never contacted or requested to come to school, and the only people in the conference room with J.D.B. were two detectives, the assistant school principal, and an administrative assistant (Dwyer, 2011).
Furthermore, the majority stated officers and judges do not need specialized training cognitive science or enhanced knowledge developmental psychology to account for a child’s age (Mears, 2011). Therefore, since officers are relied upon to judge other relevant circumstances of interrogations such time, location, and duration of questioning, they are also competent to evaluate the effect of relative age during an interrogation (Dwyer, 2011). Finally, the Supreme Court reversed the ruling, and sent the case back to North Carolina court system to determine if J.D.B.’s age made his interrogation