The Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis conducts training to teach young people how to assert their rights in police custody.
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Most people have heard the version on TV of what is known as the Miranda Rights: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in court. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford an attorney, you will be appointed to you.
It’s another thing to hear them in person when the police officers are reading when they are put in custody.
“These people have the power to lock you up. They’ve got a gun on their hip. It’s scary,” the 22-year-old recently told NPR. We are not publishing his name because he is on probation and we are concerned that he may face retaliation for speaking to reporters.
The first time he heard that word, he was in the sixth grade. Police arrested him for threatening a bully with a pocket knife.
“They didn’t call my mother. They didn’t call the lawyer. They told me my rights, but I was 12. So I don’t know what happened,” said the young man.
That day, he did not ask for a lawyer, and he spoke. Studies show almost all teenagers make the same choice: As as many as 90 percent waive Miranda rights. But legal experts say children and teenagers don’t understand the consequences.
Now, some countries are trying to fix it. In the last three years, at least four countries – incl California, Maryland, New Jersey and Washington – has passed a law that prohibits police from interrogating a child until the child has spoken to a lawyer. Illinois has introduced a bill broadening the protection for juveniles questioned by the police, and other countries – including New York and Minnesota – have introduced the same bill.
‘They literally don’t have the same resources as adults’
Areas of the brain that regulate impulsivity, self-regulation and decision-making aren’t fully developed until the twenties, says Hayley Cleary, a professor of criminal justice at Virginia Commonwealth University.
“It’s fundamentally unfair to interrogate them in the same way as adults when they don’t have the same resources as adults,” he said.
In the room alone with the police, children and teenagers more likely than an adult to falsely confess to a crime. They are also more vulnerable to incriminating themselves or pleading guilty when a lawyer won’t advise them, said Marsha Levick, chief legal officer of the Juvenile Law Center in Philadelphia.
That can lead to more severe punishment, like juvenile detention time. Imprisonment disrupts childhood. Children who experience less likely to graduate from high school and more likely to be incarcerated as an adult.
“Children plead guilty in juvenile court every day, and they are represented by lawyers who give advice and talk through with them what the consequences of that mean,” Levick said. “To do it yourself without someone explaining what is right for them to give up and what are the consequences of giving up that right, it’s just not reasonable.”
After police questioned the 22-year-old interviewed by NPR, he was placed on probation. That started the cycle: He went to juvenile detention the next year at 13, and has been on probation or behind bars and killed ever since.
“At this point, it’s part of my life, you know what I mean? It’s as sad as they say. I don’t want to be in that system and have to deal with that for the rest of my life,” he said.
Chelsea Schmitz-Gillam, a juvenile defense attorney at the Center for Legal Rights in Minneapolis, said there is a power imbalance between young people and the police when asked.
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Eventually, he connected with the nonprofit Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis. Chelsea Schmitz-Gillam, a juvenile defense attorney there, has represented him several times.
“He knows how to assert his rights when I sit next to him. We have practiced many times,” he said. “I am not a policeman either.”
He recalled watching a recording of the young man in question.
“He said, ‘I think it’s time for me to call my lawyer. I think it’s time where I don’t have to say anything else,'” Schmitz-Gillam said. the youth – keep talking to them: ‘Well, it’s up to you, if you really need a lawyer, but also if you talk to us now, look, there’s a way to make this easier for you.'”
‘The state has moved towards building accountability into the system’
In his last spring class at St. Paul., Minn., A group of high school students listen to a presentation on what to do in police interactions.
The training was hosted by the Legal Rights Center which, in addition to providing legal representation, conducts “know your rights” training for youth around the Twin Cities.
The coach asked the group if they thought 18-year-olds had the right to ask their parents when questioned by the police. Some students nodded yes, but the answer was no. Some looked concerned. One of them said that he was worried about his sister.
“Now the onus is on young people to assert their rights,” he said Malaika Eban, the center’s executive director. “But many countries have made strides to build accountability into the system.”
Malaika Eban, executive director of the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis, said that some states are moving forward to make adults responsible for asserting the rights of young people in police custody.
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There is pushback among law enforcement, said Dave Thompson, a consultant who trains investigators in interrogation techniques.
For example, Thompson said, will there be enough lawyers to talk to all these children, or should the police wait an hour before asking if it could be an urgent case?
“I’m just nervous, ‘If we add these safeguards, we won’t get more information,'” Thompson said, but he added, “if we do it right, and everyone’s rights are protected, it should benefit justice as a whole.”
Eban, from the Legal Rights Center, said it’s not about young people getting off the hook for wrongdoing, but about what they should ask themselves by adults with power.
“Nobody wants it for their own child,” he said. “If we can just breathe: ‘Okay, what will I do if my child does something wrong or is accused of doing something wrong?'”
