North Carolina Supreme Court Rules That Juvenile’s Request to Call Mother During Custodial Interrogation Was Not Clear Invocation of Statutory Right to Consult a Parent or Guardian To Bar Further Interrogation

Two months ago, the North Carolina Supreme Court in State v. Saldierna, ___ N.C. ___, 794 S.E.2d (Dec. 21, 2016), reversed the North Carolina Court of Appeals, State v. Saldierna, ___ N.C. App. ___, 775 S.E.2d 326 (2015), and ruled that a juvenile’s request to call his mother during custodial interrogation was not a clear invocation of the statutory right to consult a parent or guardian that would bar officers from conducting or continuing to conduct interrogation. This post discusses this ruling. Legal background. The United States Supreme Court in Miranda v. Arizona, 437 U.S. 385 (1966), required officers before conducting custodial interrogation of a suspect to give a four-part warning (right to remain silent; use of any statement in court; right to have lawyer present; right to appointed lawyer if indigent). In later rulings, the Court ruled that when a suspect made a clear assertion of the right to counsel or to remain silent, an officer must stop the interrogation. However, an ambiguous assertion does not. For a discussion of these and related issues, see pages 570-86 in Arrest, Search, and Investigation in North Carolina (5th ed. 2016). In addition to federal constitutional requirements, officers must also comply with state statutory requirements (G.S. 7B-2101) when conducting a custodial interrogation of a juvenile. 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 [...]