Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case presents the question whether the age of a child subjected to police questioning is relevant to the custody-analysis of Miranda v. Arizona,
I
A
Petitioner J. D. B. was a 13-year-old, seventh-grade student attending class at Smith Middle School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, when he was removed from his classroom by a uniformed police officer, escorted to a closed-door conference room, and questioned by police for at least half an hour.
This was the second time that police questioned J. D. B. in the span of a week. Five days earlier, two home break-ins occurred, and various items were stolen. Police stopped and questioned J. D. B. after he was seen behind a residence in the neighborhood where the crimes occurred. That same day, police also spoke to J. D. B.’s grandmother — his legal guardian — as well as his aunt.
Police later learned that a digital camera matching the description of one of the stolen items had been found at J. D. B.’s middle school and seen in J. D. B.’s possession. Investigator DiCostanzo, the juvenile investigator with the local police force who had been assigned to the case, went to the school to question J. D. B. Upon arrival, DiCostanzo informed the uniformed police officer on detail to the school (a so-called school resource officer), the assistant principal, and an administrative intern that he was there to question J. D. B. about the break-ins. Although DiCostanzo asked the school administrators to verify J. D. B.’s date of birth, address, and parent contact information from school records, neither the police officers nor the school administrators contacted J. D. B.’s grandmother.
The uniformed officer interrupted J. D. B.’s afternoon social studies class, removed J. D. B. from the classroom, and
Questioning began with small talk — discussion of sports and J. D. B.’s family life. DiCostanzo asked, and J. D. B. agreed, to discuss the events of the prior weekend. Denying any wrongdoing, J. D. B. explained that he had been in the neighborhood where the crimes occurred because he was seeking work mowing lawns. DiCostanzo pressed J. D. B. for additional detail about his efforts to obtain work; asked J. D. B. to explain a prior incident, when one of the victims returned home to find J. D. B. behind her house; and confronted J. D. B. with the stolen camera. The assistant principal urged J. D. B. to “do the right thing,” warning J.' D. B. that “the truth always comes out in the end.” App. 99a, 112a.
Eventually, J. D. B. asked whether he would “still be in trouble” if he returned the “stuff.” Ibid. In response, DiCostanzo explained that return of the stolen items would be helpful, but “this thing is going to court” regardless. Id., at 112a; ibid. (“[WJhat’s done is done[;] now you need to help yourself by making it right”); see also id., at 99a. DiCos-tanzo then warned that he may need to seek a secure custody order if he believed that J. D. B. would continue to break into other homes. When J. D. B. asked what a secure custody
After learning of the prospect of juvenile detention, J. D. B. confessed that he and a friend were responsible for the break-ins. DiCostanzo only then informed J. D. B. that he could refuse to answer the investigator’s questions and that he was free to leave.
B
Two juvenile petitions were filed against J. D. B., each alleging one count of breaking and entering and one count of larceny. J. D. B.’s public defender moved to suppress his statements and the evidence derived therefrom, arguing that suppression was necessary because J. D. B. had been “interrogated by police in a custodial setting without being afforded Miranda warning[s],” id., at 89a, and because his
A divided panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed. In re J. D. B., 196 N. C. App. 234,
We granted certiorari to determine whether the Miranda custody analysis includes consideration of a juvenile suspect’s age.
I — t t-H
A
Any police interview of an individual suspected of a crime has “coercive aspects to it.” Oregon v. Mathiason,
By its very nature, custodial police interrogation entails “inherently compelling pressures.” Miranda,
Recognizing that the inherently coercive nature of custodial interrogation “blurs the line between voluntary and involuntary statements,” Dickerson,
Because these measures protect the individual against the coercive nature of custodial interrogation, they are required “ ‘only where there has been such a restriction on a person’s freedom as to render him “in custody.”’” Stansbury v. California,
“Two discrete inquiries are essential to the determination: first, what were the circumstances surrounding the interrogation; and second, given those circumstances, would a reasonable person have felt he or she was at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave. Once the scene is set and the players’ lines and actions are reconstructed, the court must apply an objective test to resolve the ultimate inquiry: was there a formal arrest or restraint on freedom of movement of the degree associated with formal arrest.” Thompson v. Keohane,516 U. S. 99 , 112 (1995) (internal quotation marks, alteration, and footnote omitted).
See also Yarborough v. Alvarado,
The benefit of the objective custody analysis is that it is “designed to give clear guidance to the police.” Alvarado,
B
The State and its amici contend that a child’s age has no place in the custody analysis, no matter how young the child subjected to police questioning. We cannot agree. In some circumstances, a child’s age “would have affected how a rea
A child’s age is far “more than a chronological fact.” Eddings v. Oklahoma,
Time and again, this Court has drawn these commonsense conclusions for itself. We have observed that children “generally are less mature and responsible than adults,” Ed-dings,
Our various statements to this effect are far from unique. The law has historically reflected the same assumption that children characteristically lack the capacity to exercise mature judgment and possess only an incomplete ability to understand the world around them. See, e. g., 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England *464-*465 (hereinafter Blackstone) (explaining that limits on children’s legal capacity under the common law “secure them from hurting themselves by their own improvident acts”). Like this Court’s own generalizations, the legal disqualifications placed on children as a class — e. g., limitations on their ability to alienate property, enter a binding contract enforceable against them, and marry without parental consent — exhibit the settled understanding that the differentiating characteristics of youth are universal.
As this discussion establishes, “[o]ur history is replete with laws and judicial recognition” that children cannot be viewed simply as miniature adults. Eddings,
In fact, in many cases involving juvenile suspects, the custody analysis would be nonsensical absent some consideration of the suspect’s age. This case is a prime example. Were the court precluded from taking J. D. B.’s youth into account, it would be forced to evaluate the circumstances present here through the eyes of a reasonable person of average years. In other words, how would a reasonable adult understand his situation, after being removed from a seventh-grade social studies class by a uniformed school re
Indeed, although the dissent suggests that concerns “regarding the application of the Miranda custody rule to minors can be accommodated by considering the unique circumstances present when minors are questioned in school,” post, at 297 (opinion of Auto, J.), the effect of the schoolhouse setting cannot be disentangled from the identity of the person questioned. A student — whose presence at school is compulsory and whose disobedience at school is cause for disciplinary action — is in a far different position than, say, a parent volunteer on school grounds to chaperone an event, or an adult from the community on school grounds to attend a basketball game. Without asking whether the person “questioned in school” is a “minor,” ibid., the coercive effect of the schoolhouse setting is unknowable.
Our prior decision in Alvarado in no way undermines these conclusions. In that case, we held that a state-court decision that failed to mention a 17-year-old’s age as part of the Miranda custody analysis was not objectively unreasonable under the deferential standard of review set forth by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), 110 Stat. 1214. Like the North Carolina Supreme Court here, see
Reviewing the question de novo today, we hold that so long as the child’s age was known to the officer at the time of police questioning, or would have been objectively apparent to a reasonable officer, its inclusion in the custody analysis is consistent with the objective nature of that test.
Ill
The State and its amici offer numerous reasons that courts must blind themselves to a juvenile defendant’s age. None is persuasive.
The State further argues that age is irrelevant to the custody analysis because it “go[esj to how a suspect may internalize and perceive the circumstances of an interrogation.” Brief for Respondent 12; see also Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 21 (hereinafter U. S. Brief) (arguing that a child’s age has no place in the custody analysis because it goes to whether a suspect is “particularly susceptible” to the external circumstances of the interrogation (some internal quotation marks omitted)). But the same can be said of every objective circumstance that the State agrees is relevant to the custody analysis: Each circumstance goes to how a reasonable person would “internalize and perceive” every other. See, e. g., Stansbury,
Relying on our statements that the objective custody test is “designed to give clear guidance to the police,” Alvarado,
There is, however, an even more fundamental flaw with the State’s plea for clarity and the dissent’s singular focus on simplifying the analysis: Not once have we excluded from the custody analysis a circumstance that we determined was relevant and objective, simply to make the fault line between custodial and noncustodial “brighter.” Indeed, were the guiding concern clarity and nothing else, the custody test would presumably ask only whether the suspect had been placed under formal arrest. Berkemer,
Finally, the State and the dissent suggest that excluding age from the custody analysis comes at no cost to juveniles’ constitutional rights because the due process voluntariness test independently accounts for a child’s youth. To be sure, that test permits consideration of a child’s age, and it erects its own barrier to admission of a defendant’s inculpatory statements at trial. See Gallegos,
* * *
The question remains whether J. D. B. was in custody when police interrogated him. We remand for the state courts to address that question, this time taking account of all of the relevant circumstances of the interrogation, including J. D. B.’s age at the time. The judgment of the North Carolina Supreme Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Notes
Although the State suggests that the “record is unclear as to who brought J. D. B. to the conference room, and the trial court made no factual findings on this specific point,” Brief for Respondent 3, n. 1, the State agreed at the certiorari stage that “the SRO [school resource officer] escorted petitioner” to the room, Brief in Opposition 8.
The North Carolina Supreme Court noted that the trial court’s factual findings were “uncontested and therefore . . . binding” on it. In re J. D. B.,
Nonetheleoo, both portico’ oubmicoiono to this Court suggest that the warnings came after DiCostanzo raised the possibility of a secure custody order but before J. D. B. confessed for the first time. See Brief for Petitioner 5; Brief for Respondent 6. Because we remand for a determination whether J. D. B. was in custody under tire proper analysis, the state courts remain free to revisit whether the trial court made a conclusive finding of fact in this respect.
J. D. B.’s challenge in the North Carolina Supreme Court focused on the lower courts’ conclusion that he was not in custody for purposes of Miranda v. Arizona,
Amici on behalf of J. D. B. question whether children of all ages can comprehend Miranda, warnings and suggest that additional procedural safeguards may bo noeoGsary to protect their Miranda, rights. Brief for Juvenile Law Center et at 13-14, n. 7. Whatever the merit of that contention, it has no relevance here, where no Miranda warnings were administered at all.
Although citation to social scionco and cognitive science authorities is unnecessary to cotabliah these eommon3enoo propositions, the literature confirms what experience bears out. See, e. g., Graham v. Florida,
See, e.g., 1 E. Farnsworth, Contracts §4.4, p. 379, and n. 1 (1990) (“Common law courts early announced the prevailing mow that a minor’s contact is 'voidable’ at the instance of the minor" (citing 8 W. Iloldsworih, History of English Law 51 (1926))); 1 D. Kramer, Legal Rights of Children § 8.1, p. 663 (rev. 2d ed. 2005) (“[W]hilo minor children have the right to acquire and own property, they are considered incapable of property management” (footnote omitted)); 2 J. Kent, Commentaries on American Law *78-*79, *90 (G. Comstock ed., 11th ed. 1867); see generally id., at *233 (explaining that, under the common law, “[t]he necessity of guardians results from the inability of infants to take care of themselves . . . and this inability continues, in contemplation of law, until the infant has attained the age of [21]”); 1 Blackstone *465 (“It is generally true, that an infant can neither aliono his lands, nor do any legal act, nor maleo a doed, nor
Thus, contrary to the dissent’s protestations, today’s holding neither invites consideration of whether a particular suspect is “unusually meek or compliant,” post, at 289 (opinion of Auto, J.), nor “‘expandís]’” the Miranda custody analyoic, post, at 289, into a test that requires officers to anticipate and account for a suspect’s every personal characteristic, ace post, at 291-292.
This approach does not undermine the basic principle that an interrogating officer’s unarticulated, internal thoughts are never — in and of themselves — objective circumstances of an interrogation. See supra, at 270-271; Stansbury v. California,
The State’s purported distinction between blindness and age — that taking account of a suspect’s youth requires a court “to get into the mind” of the child, whoroas taking account of a suspect’s blindness docs not, Tr. of Oral Arg. 41-42 — is mistaken. In either case, the question becomes how a reasonable person would understand the circumstances, either from the perspective of a blind person or, as here, a 13-year-old child.
Contrary to the dissent’s intimation, see post, at 288, Miranda does not answer the question whether a child's age is an objective circumstance relevant to the custody analysis. Miranda simply holds that warnings must be given once a suspect is in custody, without “pausing] to inquire in individual cases whether the defendant was aware of his rights without a warning being given.”
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting.
The Court’s decision in this case may seem on first consideration to be modest and sensible, but in truth it is neither. It is fundamentally inconsistent with one of the main justifications for the Miranda
Miranda’s prophylactic regime places a high value on clarity and certainty. Dissatisfied with the highly fact-specific constitutional rule against the admission of involuntary confessions, the Miranda Court set down rigid standards that often require courts to ignore personal characteristics that may be highly relevant to a particular suspect’s actual susceptibility to police pressure. This rigidity, however, has brought with it one of Miranda’s principal strengths — “the ease and clarity of its application” by law enforcement officials and courts. See Moran v. Burbine,
Miranda’s custody requirement is based on the proposition that the risk of unconstitutional coercion is heightened when a suspect is placed under formal arrest or is subjected to some functionally equivalent limitation on freedom of movement. When this custodial threshold is reached, Miranda warnings must precede police questioning. But in the interest of simplicity, the custody analysis considers only whether, under the circumstances, a hypothetical reasonable person would consider himself to be confined.
Many suspects, of course, will differ from this hypothetical reasonable person. Some, including those who have been hardened by past interrogations, may have no need for Miranda warnings at all. And for other suspects — those who are unusually sensitive to the pressures of police questioning — Miranda warnings may come too late to be of any use. That is a necessary consequence of Miranda’s rigid standards, but it does not mean that the constitutional rights of these especially sensitive suspects are left unprotected. A vulnerable defendant can still turn to the constitutional rule
Today’s decision shifts the Miranda custody determination from a one-size-fits-all reasonable-person test into an inquiry that must account for at least one individualized characteristic — age—that is thought to correlate with susceptibility to coercive pressures. Age, however, is in no way the only personal characteristic that may correlate with pliability, and in future cases the Court will be forced to choose between two unpalatable alternatives. It may choose to limit today’s decision by arbitrarily distinguishing a suspect’s age from other personal characteristics — such as intelligence, education, occupation, or prior experience with law enforcement— that may also correlate with susceptibility to coercive pressures. Or, if the Court is unwilling to draw these arbitrary lines, it will be forced to effect a fundamental transformation of the Miranda custody test — from a clear, easily applied prophylactic rule into a highly fact-intensive standard resembling the voluntariness test that the Miranda Court found to be unsatisfactory.
For at least three reasons, there is no need to go down this road. First, many minors subjected to police interrogation are near the age of majority, and for these suspects the one-size-fits-all Miranda custody rule may not be a bad fit. Second, many of the difficulties in applying the Miranda custody rule to minors arise because of the unique circumstances present when the police conduct interrogations at school. The Miranda custody rule has always taken into account the setting in which questioning occurs, and accounting for the school setting in such cases will address many of these problems. Third, in cases like the one now before us, where the suspect is especially young, courts applying the constitutional voluntariness standard can take special care to ensure that incriminating statements were not obtained through coercion.
I
In the days before Miranda, this Court’s sole metric for evaluating the admissibility of confessions was a voluntariness standard rooted in both the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause and the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Bram v. United States,
All manner of individualized, personal characteristics were relevant in this voluntariness inquiry. Among the most frequently mentioned factors were the defendant’s education, physical condition, intelligence, and mental health. Withrow v. Williams,
The all-encompassing nature of the voluntariness inquiry had its benefits. It allowed courts to accommodate a “complex of values,” Schneckloth, supra, at 223, 224, and to make a careful, highly individualized determination as to whether the police had wrung “a confession out of [the] accused against his will,” Blackburn v. Alabama,
In Miranda, the Court supplemented the voluntariness inquiry with a “set of prophylactic measures” designed to ward off the “ ‘inherently compelling pressures’ of custodial interrogation." See Maryland v. Shatzer,
No less than other facets of Miranda, the threshold requirement that the suspect be in “custody” is “designed to give clear guidance to the police.” Yarborough v. Alvarado,
Until today, the Court’s cases applying this test have focused solely on the “objective circumstances of the interrogation,” id., at 323, not the personal characteristics of the interrogated. E. g., Berkemer, supra, at 442, and n. 35; but cf. Schneckloth, supra, at 226 (voluntariness inquiry requires consideration of “the details of the interrogation” and “the characteristics of the accused”). Relevant factors have included such things as where the questioning occurred,
For example, in Berkemer v. McCarty, supra, police officers conducting a traffic stop questioned a man who had been drinking and smoking marijuana before he was pulled over. Id., at 423. Although the suspect’s inebriation was readily apparent to the officers at the scene, ibid., the Court's analysis did not advert to this or any other individualized consideration. Instead, the Court focused only on the external circumstances of the interrogation itself. The opinion concluded that a typical “traffic stop” is akin to a “Terry stop”
California v. Beheler, supra, is another useful example. There, the circumstances of the interrogation were “remarkably similar” to the facts of the Court’s earlier decision in Oregon v. Mathiason,
II
In light of this established practice, there is no denying that, by incorporating age into its analysis, the Court is embarking on a new expansion of the established custody standard. And since Miranda is this Court’s rule, “not a constitutional command,” it is up to the Court “to justify its expansion.” Cf. Arizona v. Roberson,
In its present form, Miranda’s prophylactic regime already imposes “high cost[s]” by requiring suppression of confessions that are often “highly probative” and “voluntary” by any traditional standard. Oregon v. Elstad,
A
The Court’s rationale for importing age into the custody standard is that minors tend to lack adults’ “capacity to exercise mature judgment” and that failing to account for that “reality” will leave some minors unprotected under Miranda in situations where they perceive themselves to be confined. See ante, at 273, 272. I do not dispute that many suspects who are under 18 will be more susceptible to police pressure than the average adult. As the Court notes, our pre-Miranda cases were particularly attuned to this “reality” in applying the constitutional requirement of voluntariness in fact. Ante, at 272-273 (relying on Haley,
Indeed, it has always been the case under Miranda that the unusually meek or compliant are subject to the same fixed rules, including the same custody requirement, as those who are unusually resistant to police pressure. Berkemer,
That is undoubtedly why this Court’s Miranda cases have never before mentioned “the suspect’s age” or any other individualized consideration in applying the custody standard. See Alvarado, supra, at 666. And unless the Miranda custody rule is now to be radically transformed into one that takes into account the wide range of individual charac
Why, for example, is age different from intelligence? Suppose that an officer, upon going to a school to question a student, is told by the principal that the student has an IQ of 75 and is in a special-education class. Cf. In re J. D. B.,
How about the suspect’s cultural background? Suppose the police learn (or should have learned, see ante, at 274) that a suspect they wish to question is a recent immigrant from a country in which dire consequences often befall any person who dares to attempt to cut short any meeting with the police.
The defendant’s education is another personal characteristic that may generate “conclusions about behavior and perception.” Ante, at 272 (internal quotation marks omitted). Under today’s decision, why should police officers and courts
I have little doubt that today’s decision will soon be cited by defendants — and perhaps by prosecutors as well — for the proposition that all manner of other individual characteristics should be treated like age and taken into account in the Miranda custody calculus. Indeed, there are already lower court decisions that take this approach. See United States v. Beraun-Panez,
In time, the Court will have to confront these issues, and it will be faced with a difficult choice. It may choose to distinguish today’s decision and adhere to the arbitrary proclamation that “age ... is different.” Ante, at 275. Or it may choose to extend today’s holding and, in doing so, further undermine the very rationale for the Miranda regime.
B
If the Court chooses the latter course, then a core virtue of Miranda — the “ease and clarity of its application” — will be lost. Moran,
The Court holds that age must be taken into account when it “was known to the officer at the time of the interview,” or when it “would have been objectively apparent” to a reasonable officer. Ante, at 274. The first half of this test overturns the rule that the “initial determination of custody” does not depend on the “subjective views harbored by . . . interrogating officers.” Stansbury,
Even after courts clear this initial hurdle, further problems will likely emerge as judges attempt to put themselves in the shoes of the average 16-year-old, or 15-year-old, or 13-year-old, as the case may be. Consider, for example, a 60-year-old judge attempting to make a custody determina
Take a fairly typical case in which today’s holding may make a difference. A 16V2-year-old moves to suppress incriminating statements made prior to the administration of Miranda warnings. The circumstances are such that, if the defendant were at least 18, the court would not find that he or she was in custody, but the defendant argues that a reasonable 16V2-year-old would view the situation differently. The judge will not have the luxury of merely saying: “It is common sense that a 16V2-year-old is not an 18-year-old. Motion granted.” Rather, the judge will be required to determine whether the differences between a typical lfi^-year-old and a typical 18-year-old with respect to susceptibility to the pressures of interrogation are sufficient to change the outcome of the custody determination. Today’s opinion contains not a word of actual guidance as to how judges are supposed to go about making that determination.
C
Petitioner and the Court attempt to show that this task is not unmanageable by pointing out that age is taken into account in other legal contexts. In particular, the Court relies on the fact that the age of a defendant is a relevant factor under the reasonable-person standard applicable in negligence suits. Ante, at 274 (citing Restatement (Third) of
Equally inapposite are the Eighth Amendment cases the Court cites in support of its new rule. Ante, at 272, 274, 275 (citing Eddings,
Nor do state laws affording extra protection for juveniles during custodial interrogation provide any support for petitioner’s arguments. See Brief for Petitioner 16-17. States are free to enact additional restrictions on the police over and above those demanded by the Constitution or Miranda. In addition, these state statutes generally create clear, workable rules to guide police conduct. See Brief for Petitioner 16-17 (citing statutes that require or permit parents to be present during custodial interrogation of a minor, that require minors to be advised of a statutory right to communicate with a parent or guardian, and that require parental consent to custodial interrogation). Today's decision, by
Ill
The Court’s decision greatly diminishes the clarity and ad-ministrability that have long been recognized as “principal advantages” of Miranda’s prophylactic requirements. See, e. g., Moran,
As an initial matter, the difficulties that the Court’s standard introduces will likely yield little added protection for most juvenile defendants. Most juveniles who are subjected to police interrogation are teenagers nearing the age of majority.
In addition, many of the concerns that petitioner raises regarding the application of the Miranda custody rule to minors can be accommodated by considering the unique circumstances present when minors are questioned in school. See Brief for Petitioner 10-11 (reciting at length the factors petitioner believes to be relevant to the custody determination here, including the fact that petitioner was removed from class by a police officer, that the interview took place in a school conference room, and that a uniformed officer and a vice principal were present). The Miranda custody rule has always taken into account the setting in which questioning occurs, restrictions on a suspect’s freedom of movement, and the presence of police officers or other authority figures. See Alvarado, swpra, at 665; Shatzer,
Finally, in cases like the one now before us, where the suspect is much younger than the typical juvenile defendant, courts should be instructed to take particular care to ensure that incriminating statements were not obtained involuntarily. The voluntariness inquiry is flexible and accommodating by nature, see Schneckloth,
* * *
The Court rests its decision to inject personal characteristics into the Miranda custody inquiry on the principle that judges applying Miranda cannot “blind themselves to . . . commonsense reality.” Ante, at 265, 272, 273-274, 277. But the Court’s shift is fundamentally at odds with the clear prophylactic rules that Miranda has long enforced. Miranda frequently requires judges to blind themselves to the reality that many un-Mirandized' custodial confessions are “by no means involuntary” or coerced. Dickerson,
I respectfully dissent.
See Miranda v. Arizona,
Maryland v. Shatzer,
Berkemer v. McCarty,
Oregon v. Mathiason,
New York v. Quarles,
California v. Beheler,
See Terry v. Ohio,
The Court claims that “[n]ot once” have any of our cases “excluded from the custody analysis a circumstance that we determined was relevant and objective, simply to make the fault line between custodial and noncustodial ‘brighter.’ ” Ante, at 280. Surely this is incorrect. The very act
Cf. United States v. Chalan,
The Court also relies on North Carolina’s concession at oral argument that a court could take into account a suspect’s blindness as a factor relevant to the Miranda custody determination. Ante, at 278, and n. 9. This is a farfetched hypothetical, and neither the parties nor their amici cite any ease in which such a problem has actually arisen. Presumably such a case would involve a situation in which a blind defendant was given “a typed document advising him that he [was] free to leave.” Brief for Juvenile Law Center et al. as Amici Curiae 23. In such a case, furnishing this advice in a form calculated to be unintelligible to the suspect would be tantamount to failing to provide the advice at all. And advice by the police that a suspect is or is not free to leave at will has always been regarded as a circumstance regarding the conditions of the interrogation that must be taken into account in making the Miranda custody determination.
See Dept, of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2008 Crime in the United States (Sept. 2009), online at http://www2.fbi.gov/uer/eius2008/ data/table_38.html (all Internet materials as visited June 8, 2011, and available in Clerk of Court’s case file) (indicating that less than 30% of juvenile arrests in the United States are of suspects who are under 15).
The Court thinks it would be “absur[d]” to consider the school setting without accounting for age, ante, at 276, but the real absurdity is for the Court to require police officers to get inside the head of a reasonable minor while making the quick, on-the-spot determinations that Miranda demands.
Surveys have shown that “[l]arge majorities” of the public are aware that “individuals arrested for a crime” have a right to “remai[n] silent (81%),” a right to “a lawyer (95%),” and a right to have a lawyer “appointed” if the arrestee “cannot afford one (88%).” Belden, Russonello, & Stewart, Developing a National Message for Indigent Defense: Analysis of National Survey 4 (Oct. 2001), online at http://www.nlada.org/DMS/ Doeuments/1211996548.53/Polling%20results%20report.pdf.