North Carolina Court of Appeals Finds That Erroneous Completion of Juvenile Waiver of Rights Form Did Not Bar Admissibility of Confession

Last week, the North Carolina Court of Appeals in State v. Watson (October 18, 2016) ruled that an officer’s erroneous completion of a juvenile waiver of rights form did not bar the admissibility of the juvenile’s confession. This post will discuss North Carolina statutory law concerning juvenile warnings and rights and the Watson ruling. General background. North Carolina law provides statutory warnings and rights to a young person that provides the person with additional protections beyond the federal constitutional warnings and rights set out in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and later cases. If officers arrest a person who is 14, 15, 16, or 17 years old and who is not a member of the armed forces or emancipated (a person under age 18 is emancipated if the person is married or has been released from parental control by court order), they must advise the person of the right to have a parent, guardian, or custodian present during questioning—in addition to giving Miranda warnings. If officers take into custody a person less than 16 years old, a statement obtained during custodial interrogation is not admissible in court unless the youngster’s parent, guardian, custodian, or attorney is present during the interrogation. (S.L. 2015-58, effective for offenses committed on or after December 1, 2015, amended G.S. 7B-2101(b) to increase the person’s age from less than 14 years old to less than 16 years old.) If an attorney is not present, the officers must inform the parent, guardian, or custodian of the [...]