Personal Characteristics and "Custody" for Miranda Purposes

The North Carolina Supreme Court recently decided In re J.D.B., a close and interesting juvenile case. I mentioned it briefly here when it divided the court of appeals. It has implications well beyond the juvenile context, which I'll unpack at the end of this post. The basic facts are as follows: Chapel Hill police suspected a seventh-grade student, who participated in special education classes, of breaking into several houses. An investigator went to the juvenile's school and had him removed from class and escorted to a conference room by a school resource officer. The investigator questioned the juvenile in the presence of the SRO, the assistant principal, and an intern. The door of the conference room where the interview took place was closed but not locked. The juvenile was not given Miranda warnings or the "juvenile Miranda" warnings required prior to custodial interrogations by G.S. 7B-2101, and he made incriminating statements. He was allowed to leave and catch the bus home, but later was charged. He moved to suppress his statements based on the lack of Miranda and statutory warnings. The trial court found that such warnings were not required because the interview was not custodial. The court of appeals affirmed 2-1. The majority and the dissent agreed that whether the juvenile was in custody depends on whether a reasonable person in the juvenile's circumstances would have believed that he was under arrest or subject to a degree of restraint typically associated with an arrest. The two opinions disagreed about whether [...]