An Examination of Juveniles' Miranda Abilities: Investigating Differences in Miranda Recall and Reasoning

Abstract

Juvenile suspects are routinely expected to possess an accurate recall of written or oral Miranda warnings. This study addresses the Miranda-related comprehension recall and reasoning of legally involved juveniles. It is the first juvenile research to compare systematically two levels of complexity for Miranda warnings with the three modalities (oral, written, or combined) of administration. Unexpectedly, easily read written warnings marginally outperformed the combined modality. In order to examine Miranda reasoning, three juvenile groups were operationalized: impaired, questionable, and likely adequate. Predictably, the impaired and questionable groups possessed significantly lower verbal abilities than the likely-adequate reasoning group. In addition, the likely-adequate group exhibited the strongest appreciation of the adversarial context in which Miranda waiver decisions are rendered. The discussion addresses the marked disparities in Miranda recall from a total recall versus component-by-component understanding of Miranda rights. It also considers more generally how crucially important Miranda misconceptions might be remedied. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

One American Perspective on the Rights of Accused: An Initial Survey of Miranda Rights in a Broader Context

“…Such results reinforce the validity of earlier findings that the ability to appreciate Miranda rights appears directly related to age, and, presumably, to maturity as well (Viljoen, Zapf, & Roesch, ). For waiver decisions, impaired Miranda reasoning is observed in more than a third (36.8%) of juveniles (Rogers, Steadham, Carter, Henry, Drogin, & Robinson, in press).…”

Feigned Miranda Impairment by Legally Involved Juveniles: The Vulnerability of Forensic Measures and the Development of Effective Screens

“…For the genuine condition (i.e., standard instructions), archival data were previously collected as part of programmatic Miranda research supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Law and Social Sciences Program. As summarized in the Introduction, the programmatic results have been previously reported (Rogers et al, 2016;Sharf, Rogers, Williams, & Drogin, 2017). For the feigning condition (i.e., simulation of impaired Miranda abilities), new data were collected from one of the previously used research sites.…”

“…Potentially devastating Miranda misassumptions involve the roles of police officers and defense counsel. Juveniles with impaired Miranda reasoning are more likely than others to view law enforcement as advocates, while conversely questioning the allegiance of defense attorneys (Rogers et al, 2016). Such profound errors can lead to fundamentally flawed reasoning that contributes to invalid Miranda waivers.…”

The MRCI with juvenile detainees: optimizing performance or emphasizing ecological validity?

“…The Miranda Rights Comprehension Instruments (MRCI; Goldstein, Zelle, & Grisso, ) represent a well‐validated measure for assessing Miranda abilities in juveniles. However, recent research (Rogers et al, ) has illuminated potential concerns with the MRCI in terms of ecological validity.…”

“…A recent investigation (Rogers et al, ) discovered a remarkable disparity for legally involved juveniles between their free recall of a representative Miranda warning and their more step‐by‐step, encouraged performance of the Comprehension of Miranda Rights‐II (CMR‐II) instrument of the MRCI. For free recall, juveniles remembered far less than half of the important details (32.3% for the oral and 40.9% for the written advisement) even when given a simple version (i.e., 4.1 reading grade level).…”