Featured ArticleThe Importance of Discussing the Miranda Rights with a Juvenile Suspect
In the case of Commonwealth v. Wade W., a juvenile (April 2012) the Appeals Court of Massachusetts overturned the lower court's admission of the defendant's incriminating statements because of concern regarding the subject's understanding of the Miranda warnings.
From the court's opinion:
"On November 10, 2008, Saugus police officers were investigating a bomb threat that had been written, in some fashion, in the boys' bathroom at Saugus High School. Two officers spoke with the sixteen year old juvenile, in the presence of his mother and stepfather, at the Saugus police station. The motion judge found "the interrogation was custodial." At the beginning of the interview, one officer, Detective Frederick Forni, read to the juvenile his Miranda rights. Forni read them one after another fairly rapidly, and without stopping between them; at the end of the recitation, he asked if the juvenile understood his rights, and then passed the form to the juvenile's mother and asked her to look at it. Forni did say more than once that both the juvenile and his mother could ask questions if they wished. The juvenile's mother looked briefly at the form and then handed it to her son, who signed it immediately without appearing to read it. Forni then directed the juvenile to a place on the form saying, "[T]his next line just is the waiver; keeping these rights in mind that you still want to talk to us." The juvenile began to write and his mother said, "So he's not waivering his rights?" Forni said, "I'm sorry?" The mother said, "Is that what he's doing? He's not waivering his rights?" Forni responded, "Well, no...." At this point, the second officer, Detective Donovan, spoke over Forni and said, "He's just saying that he'll talk to us." Forni added, "Yeah, that's what we say. If you would, just sign as a witness and then just put mother there."
At the hearing on the motion to suppress, the juvenile's mother testified that she did not understand that she was there to advise her son about his rights, or that he was waiving his right to remain silent, or that "an attorney would have been appointed ... prior to any questioning at [her] request." She also testified that, before she joined her son and his stepfather in the interview room, Detective Donovan had told her that he wanted to speak to her son before she spoke with him or told him anything.
"In reviewing a ruling on a motion to suppress, '[w]e accept the judge's subsidiary findings absent clear error but conduct an independent review of his ultimate findings and conclusions of law.' Commonwealth v. Bostock, 450 Mass. 616, 619 (2008), quoting Commonwealth v. Jiminez, 438 Mass. 213, 218 (2002). '[O]ur duty is to make an independent determination of the correctness of the judge's application of constitutional principles to the facts as found.' Commonwealth v. Bostock, supra at 619." Commonwealth v. Hoyt, 461 Mass. 142, 148 (2011). In addition, as in Hoyt, we have before us in the record the interrogation video recording and the transcript of the interrogation. "We are thus 'in the same position as the motion judge in viewing the videotape.' "Hoyt, supra, quoting from Commonwealth v. Prater, 420 Mass. 569, 578 n. 7 (1995). See Commonwealth v. Novo, 442 Mass. 262, 266 (2004), quoting from Commonwealth v. Bean, 435 Mass. 708, 714 n. 15 (2002) (court "will 'take an independent view' of recorded confessions and make judgments with respect to their contents without deference to the fact finder, who 'is in no better position to evaluate the[ir] content and significance'"). "A juvenile defendant over the age of fourteen may properly waive his constitutional rights if, after having been advised of those rights, he was afforded an opportunity to consult with an interested adult who was informed of and understood those rights" (emphasis supplied). Commonwealth v. McCra, 427 Mass. 564, 567 (1998). Under all of the circumstances here, we are persuaded that the Commonwealth did not meet its burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the juvenile's waiver of his rights was knowing and intelligent, because it is not clear that his mother, the interested adult, in fact understood those rights. To her question whether the juvenile was waiving his rights, Forni's first response was "No." It may be, as the Commonwealth argues, and as the officer himself testified, that Forni intended the answer to be a contradiction of the mother's statement that the juvenile was not waiving his rights; we do not mean to suggest that the officer intended any deception. However, the officer's state of mind is not the issue.
In addition, Detective Donovan's response, "He's just saying that he'll talk to us," undercut, rather than reinforced, the earlier warnings. In order to show a knowing and intelligent waiver under these circumstances, the officers were required either to respond that the juvenile was in fact waiving certain rights and to explain those rights again or, at a minimum, to ask the mother to explain her question so that they could respond appropriately. The mother's question "clearly indicated that [s]he was confused about the legal consequences of making a statement, and [s]he was effectively, though not intentionally, deceived by the officer's response." Commonwealth v. Dustin, 373 Mass. 612, 613 (1977).