A friend of my wife argues that confessions from minors shouldn't be used in court because "they don't understand Miranda."  I always thought that after Mirandizing "anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law" reguardless of age.  I argued that it is the duty of the DAs to use every tool at their disposal to prove their case.

In the case we discussed, a confession from a 15 year old subject was used in court in a homicide case.  The subject freely confessed to the crime without the presence of an attorney after being Mirandized.

Can the defense attorney file a motion to suppress or recant the confession if the subject is a minor?

As I understand it, the Attorney for the Minor can file a motion to suppress, but it is soley up to the judge's discresion(sp). He will get a lot of shit from the DA's office if he does. You see, after you Mirandize a person (minor or not), they basically take responsibility for EVERYTHING they say afterwards. But under some circumstances (inebriation, mental stability, emotional stability, and sometimes phisical condition, like if he just got the crap beat out of him), the judge will throw out the confession because it is obvious that the Minor was not in his usual state of mind.

But without knowing the details it is difficult to give a more detailed explanation/approach for the defence of the minor.

By the way, your wife's friend is a moron if she believes that just because you haven't turned 18, you are too ill-equiped to take responsibility for your own actions.

Thanks Uhlek,

I forgot to mention that she has Clinton, Gore, and Liberman stickers generously distributed on her car.

Yeah, what about Patty "Hitleriffic" Murray, and Maria Cant(do anything)well? [50]

She probably lives on Capitol Hill, or in Fremont, and drives a Subaru too, right. [:)]

HA!  No, she's actually from California, up here visiting her grandparents.

BTW, I'm supposed to take everyone to the Seattle Aquarium tomorrow.  Hmmm.  She better not ask why my belt pack is so large or she might have a heart  attack from the amount of freedom up here.

Oh God, it already is 'tomorrow'.  I better get some sleep.

If she asks what's in your belt pack, tell her it's some box cutters and nail clippers, and MAKE SURE YOU TELL HER THEY'RE [U]REGISTERED[/U].

If people arent paying attention to what an arresting officer is saying to them after killing somebody and they speak after theyve been told to shut the hell up, let them rot in prison

yeah, i know that was a run on sentence, but you can kindly go to hell

Generally, it is pretty tough to get a legal confession from a minor.

Around here, they have to have been in contact with their parents, and they have to waive their 5th Amendment rights before a judge, without the police present, before you can take an admissible, self-incriminating statement from them.

That does not prevent you from getting admissible statements about other folks criminal activities from them, though, which is helpful when you get several juveniles who committed a crime together. You just get them to rat each other out, knowing that you can't use the statements against the folks who gave them.

Michigan uses the totality of the circumstances test for admitting confessions of minors, where the judge or referee (more lately the judge since our changes to get more criminal children into real adult court) looks at every fact surrounding the confession to see if there was improper pressure.

hmm, 15, I think that was 9th grade. Global Studies 1 was the social studies class. But prior to that in either 7th or 8th, or maybe a little of both we had done some US history, including some brief Constitution work (more thorough US history and Constitution stuff came in 11th and 12th)
that being the case, a 15 year old should at least know about the 5th amendment