J.D.B. v. North Carolina: Is the Supreme Court obsolete?

The recent Supreme Court case of J.D.B. v. North Carolina has generated all sorts of hoopla.  The Wall Street Journal Law Blog, for example, even claims that the ruling “expands juveniles’ Miranda rights”—an outcome that would be celebrated by some and condemned by others, no doubt.  A closer inspection, however, reveals that the case will have zero impact on juvenile rights, and, more significantly, that our Supreme Court is fast becoming obsolete in the area of constitutional criminal law.   

In J.D.B. v. N.C. the issue was this: When determining whether a suspect was “in custody” during an interrogation, and thus was entitled to Miranda warnings, does the suspect’s age matter?  A bitterly divided court needed a combined thirty-seven pages to answer: yes, age matters.  (Right answer.) 

Aside from its incredible inefficiency, why does this make the Supreme Court obsolete?  First, the test for “in custody” has long been whether a reasonable person, in the defendant’s shoes, would have felt free to leave.  Given that, how could age not be a factor?  In J.D.B. v. N.C., for example, the suspect was a thirteen-year-old boy interrogated at his middle school.  Of course he didn’t feel free to leave—where could he have gone?—whereas an adult could have thumbed his nose at the interrogators, walked to his car, and driven away.

But while the Supreme Court isn’t doing anything that a trial judge couldn’t do, the fact is that the trial judge didn’t do it.  So the Supreme Court, if nothing else, is at least acting as an error-correcting court, right?  Well, not exactly, and this leads to the second point.  After its lengthy decision, all the Supreme Court did was send the case back to the trial court—the same trial court that botched things in the first place—and told it to reconsider its ruling by taking the defendant’s age into account. 

My early prediction is this: On remand, the trial court will simply say that, even after considering the defendant’s age as directed by the Supreme Court, it still finds the defendant was not in custody and therefore not entitled to Miranda warnings.  Hopefully this particular court, with all of the attention focused on it and on this particular case, will prove me wrong and get it right.  But even if the trial court were to suppress J.D.B.’s statement, the case doesn’t get dismissed.  The prosecutor can still prosecute him, and, even if the statement were to be suppressed, can still use the statement to impeach J.D.B. if he were to testify in his defense.  (As I demonstrated here, Miranda rights aren’t all they’re cracked-up to be.) 

But looking beyond the facts and outcome of this one, particular case, the thing that journalists fail to realize is this: at most, all the Supreme Court did was add a single factor to a multi-factor balancing test.  And on a bigger scale, J.D.B. v. N.C. is meaningless because the new factor—or any single factor, for that matter—can easily be side-stepped by a trial court in reaching its predetermined outcome. 

Here’s how it works.  Below are two hypothetical trial court rulings—one pre-J.D.B. and one post-J.D.B.—based on identical sets of facts.  Note the similarity in both the language and the outcomes; the only difference between the two trial court rulings to account for the new factor—the defendant’s age—is underlined.

Pre-J.D.B.:  “Based on the testimony at the suppression hearing, I find that the defendant was not in custody at the time he made his statement, and therefore was not entitled to Miranda warnings.  The defendant was invited to the interrogation room, and was not brought there by force.  He was not handcuffed at any time.  He was never told that he was not free to leave.  The police officer testified that the defendant was free to get up and walk away at any time.  No threats were made against the defendant.  The police first asked him if he would be willing to talk to them.  Because the defendant was not in custody at the time he made his statement, he was not entitled to Miranda warnings and the statement is therefore admissible, even in the state’s case-in-chief.”

Post-J.D.B.:  “Based on the testimony at the suppression hearing, I find that the defendant was not in custody at the time he made his statement, and therefore was not entitled to Miranda warnings.  Although the defendant was thirteen years of age, the remaining factors in the analysis overwhelmingly demonstrate that the defendant was not in custody.  The defendant was invited to the interrogation room, and was not brought there by force.  He was not handcuffed at any time.  He was never told that he was not free to leave.  The police officer testified that the defendant was free to get up and walk away at any time.  No threats were made against the defendant.  The police first asked him if he would be willing to talk to them.  Because the defendant was not in custody at the time he made his statement, he was not entitled to Miranda warnings and the statement is therefore admissible, even in the state’s case-in-chief.”

So, despite all the hoopla, the end result is the same.  And despite its combined thirty-seven pages, the Supreme Court has changed nothing.  The Supreme Court is obsolete.