The ABA House of Delegates just passed a resolution urging state and local governments to adopt laws and policies to prohibit police from lying to juveniles — about either facts or pledges of leniency — to extract confessions.
The Resolution, sponsored by the Criminal Justice Section and basic common sense, draws upon research showing that minors lack the capacity to assert their due process rights the same way adults can.
From the ABA Journal:
The report cites data from the Juvenile Law Center that shows “adolescents waive their Miranda rights at an astounding rate of 90%.” It also cites data from the National Registry of Exonerations, which reported in 2022 that 34% of exonerated defendants who were under 18 at the time of the crime falsely confessed.
“Advances in neuroscience support what any parent or teacher knows—teenagers are fundamentally different from adults in ways that are critically important to their treatment in the criminal justice system,” said McKenzie, who has three “very intelligent and high-functioning” daughters.
Donald Trump’s first real foray into being wrong about politics involved publicly hyping the false confessions that the NYPD drew out of the Central Park Five, all aged between 14-16 at the time. But while that case garnered more media attention, it isn’t an outlier. One study noted that “of 340 exonerations found that 42% of juveniles studied had falsely confessed, compared with only 13% of adults.”
While a resolution focused on the unique disgrace occasioned by misleading kids, it’s not like lying to adults is much better. Thomas Perez Jr. — not a juvenile — recently secured a nearly $1M settlement after police dragged him through a 17-hour interrogation, telling him that they’d found bloodstains and signs of human remains at his house before threatening to kill his dog if he didn’t confess to killing his father.
His dad was still very much alive.
So maybe “don’t lie to people to secure phony confessions” doesn’t need to be limited to just kids.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
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