In State in the Interest of A.A, decided on Jan. 15, the New Jersey Supreme Court established a reasonable and, in our view, appropriate procedure which should be followed before custodial statements of a juvenile may be admitted into evidence.
In A.A. the juvenile’s mother was called to the police station where her detained 15-year-old son was being held. She was told that her son “shot someone.” Five police officers were in the room within 10 to 15 feet of A.A. while he and his mother spoke through the gate of the holding cell in which the juvenile was detained. A detective testified that he overheard the conversation and that the mother began to cry and left the room. No Miranda warnings were given to A.A. either in his mother‘s presence or otherwise. The Family Part judge admitted the statements upon finding there was no “police interrogation or its functional equivalent,” and therefore no Miranda warnings were required. In concluding that the juvenile’s statements were both inadmissible and were not harmless at the juvenile’s hearing, the Supreme Court repeated prior holdings that interrogation includes not only direct questioning but also “any words or actions on the part of the police … that the police should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response,” and in the case of a juvenile, that an admission “must be voluntary, in the sense not only that it was not coerced or suggested, but also that it was not the product of ignorance of rights or of adolescent fantasy, fright or despair.”
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