Miranda Rights Essay

Common sense backed by brain science leaves no doubt that juveniles are often more vulnerable to the pressures of police questioning, and the protective procedures designed for adults offer limited help. Studies show that younger juveniles misunderstand Miranda warnings and developmental psychologists question whether minors are ever competent to make knowing, intelligent and voluntary waivers of their rights. Because of their incompetence, investigators use interrogative tactics to their advantage. Such tactics include misrepresenting facts, presenting false evidence, lying, deceit and psychological tactics and strategies to heighten adolescents stress and anxiety to manipulate their vulnerabilities to obtain confessions (Critics lament that
Furthermore, when it comes to investigators interrogating juveniles, the Supreme Court does not require any special procedural safeguards when they interrogate juveniles or when they use the adult standard to gauge the validity of juveniles’ waivers of Miranda rights (Critics lament that Miranda waiver doctrine is broken, n.d.). When it comes to the difference in rights, the police and judges have developed extensive protocols to ensure that statements are reliable, but there are no similar safeguards for juvenile suspects. Instead, to take advantage of psychological reality, interrogation training instructs officers to treat children no differently than they do adults, except when employing strategies for manipulating children’s special sensitivities. Consequently it leads to the youth making incriminating statements, or false confessions. Yet for statements made during custodial interrogations to be admissible, the rule of Miranda requires suspects to waive their rights before questioning and after adequate warnings (Critics lament that Miranda waiver doctrine is broken,