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U.S. Supreme Court · 2011
564 U.S. 261 (2011)
Held that a child's age properly informs the Miranda custody analysis when it was known to the officer or objectively apparent. The Court reasoned that a reasonable child subjected to police questioning will sometimes feel pressured to submit when a reasonable adult would feel free to leave, and that age -- unlike idiosyncratic traits -- yields objective conclusions about children as a class without compromising the objective custody test.
Some later courts have distinguished or questioned it — read before relying.
Treatment last confirmed July 18, 2026. Case-wide subsequent treatment; human-set. Not specific to any one passage.
Adolescents are more susceptible than adults to peer influence and to external pressure or coercion, with susceptibility greatest in mid-adolescence; the mere presence of peers measurably increases adolescents' risk-taking and shifts their decisions toward immediate rewards.
Juveniles, especially those age 15 and younger, frequently do not adequately comprehend or appreciate the Miranda warnings they waive: as a group they understand the words of the warnings, and the function and significance of the rights to silence and counsel, less well than adults — raising doubt about whether a juvenile's waiver is knowing and intelligent.