Mired in Miranda Misconceptions: A Study of Legally Involved Juveniles at Different Levels of Psychosocial Maturity

Abstract

The Supreme Court of the United States has long recognized that the vulnerabilities of juvenile offenders merit special protections due to deficits in experience and maturity. Appellate courts assume that Miranda warnings will inform juvenile suspects of their Miranda rights, and allow them to render knowing and intelligent waivers. This study examines Miranda misconceptions of legally involved juveniles (i.e., juvenile detainees and youth mandated to juvenile justice alternative education) at different levels of psychosocial maturity. These juveniles manifested an unexpectedly large frequency of erroneous Miranda beliefs; each group (low, middle, and high maturity) averaged a dozen or more misconceptions, thus overshadowing substantive differences between maturity groups. However, maturity played an important role in the immediate recall of a Miranda advisement. Alarmingly, both low- and middle-maturity groups displayed less than one-third immediate recall. The high-maturity group performed better, but still failed to recall almost half of the Miranda concepts. The overall findings are discussed with respect to juvenile Miranda comprehension and reasoning.

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

“…Ironically, juvenile Miranda warnings are often far more complex and difficult to read than their general counterparts (Rogers et al, ). Not surprisingly, legally involved juveniles frequently fail to recall even 50% of juvenile Miranda warnings, and these percentages plummet further when applied to those with low or moderate maturity (Rogers et al, ). 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, ).…”

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

“…The first study of juvenile (i.e., youth‐specific) Miranda warnings, conducted by Rogers, Steadham, Fiduccia, Drogin, and Robinson (), yielded very sobering findings. Although varying widely in psychosocial maturity, most legally involved juveniles remained consistent in their overall lack of knowledge regarding Miranda warnings.…”

“…Rogers et al . () extended their MQ research to juveniles by simplifying its language and adding juvenile‐specific items, which resulted in the juvenile version of the MQ (the JMQ). The new JMQ items were clearly indebted to Grisso's () discussion of false Miranda beliefs among juvenile offenders (see Grisso's Chapter 5: “Perceptions of the Function of Rights”).…”

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

“…However, CMR‐II could be compared with representative Miranda warnings from national surveys. Prototypical warnings are available for different reading levels for both general (Rogers, Blackwood, et al, ) and juvenile warnings (Rogers et al, ). Thus, the relationship of the MRCI warning to representative Miranda warnings would represent a vitally important step in establishing ecological validity.…”

“…3 In considering the totality of the circumstances, the single-component approach could be compared with the total warning comprehension. It is sobering to note that legally involved juveniles often possess very little prior Miranda knowledge and that warningseven among mature juvenilesstill result in poor overall recall (M = 42.9%; Rogers, Steadham, Fiduccia, Drogin, & Robinson, 2014). In this light, overall CMR-II comprehension may be directly relevant to examinees' knowing prong of their Miranda waivers.…”