WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court delved Wednesday into two cases involving the welfare of children, including one where justices seemed ready to force courts to consider age when examining whether a child is in custody and must be given Miranda rights.
The justices wrestled with whether a child, in this case a seventh-grade special-education student, could understand he was free to end police questioning and leave, a key indicator of whether someone is in custody.
In the second case, the court appeared unlikely to rule that delinquent parents must be given a lawyer before judges can jail them for not paying child support.
The special-education student, known as JDB in court papers, was 13 in 2005 when he confessed to a rash of break-ins in Chapel Hill, N.C., while interviewed in a closed room at his school by police and school officials.
JDB’s lawyer challenged the use of his confessions. Previous court rulings have required Miranda warnings before police interrogations for people who are in custody, which is defined as when a reasonable person would think he cannot end the questioning and leave.
North Carolina ruling
The North Carolina Supreme Court refused to throw the confession out, saying the youth was never in custody because he had not been formally restrained and the door to the room was not guarded. It also said courts cannot look at age when examining whether the boy thought he could leave.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s four liberal-leaning justices as well as the more conservative Anthony Ken nedy seemed uncomfortable with this idea during the argument.
“Just as a matter of common sense, how can you say we’re going to have the same test for this 8-year-old as we would for the 30-year-old?” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.
Judges take into account whether a person speaks English and a person’s physical shortcomings — such as deafness — when determining whether someone thinks he is in custody, said Justice Stephen Breyer.
Skeptical conservatives
The court’s conservative justices argued, however, that making police officers consider age when they question children could raise challenges in other situations.
“If age should be one of the factors deciding whether the individual regarded himself as in custody or not, why shouldn’t mental deficiency be so as well?” Justice Antonin Scalia said.
In the argument over providing lawyers in child-support proceedings, several justices said they were troubled by the case of a South Carolina father who was repeatedly jailed even though he insisted he could not afford child-support payments of $50 a week. But the court sounded reluctant to extend the right to a taxpayer-provided lawyer that exists in criminal cases to civil proceedings where a person faces jail time.
Justice Elena Kagan was among those who wondered whether there are procedures short of a court-appointed lawyer that would give a “person in this situation a fair shake at this.”
Kennedy suggested that a ruling in favor of the father, Michael Turner, could affect thousands of cases around the country.
