The Thinning Divide Between the U.S. Public School System and Law Enforcement: What Authorizes Constitutional Interrogation in Public Schools?

Public schools have a unique duty to reasonably maintain a safe academic environment for their students. While this is an undisputed fact, methods aimed at ensuring this safety have surfaced as problematic in nature. For over twenty years, zero discipline policies have been implemented in school environments as severe and oftentimes punitive predetermined consequences to violations of school disciplinary policies. The concept originated as integral to the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, where schools were federally mandated to expel students for at least one year if found with a weapon on school grounds, no exceptions [1]. Many public schools have used this act and its zero discipline concept as a model for approaching violations beyond holding firearms. For instance, in one NYC public school, a high school junior was forced into a precinct cell after refusing to give in his cell phone to NYPD officers before entering his school building [2]. While actual juvenile crime rates have shown no evidence of declining as a result of zero tolerance policies, these policies have only become more ubiquitous [3]. In order to enforce them, schools have become overly reliant on law enforcement to handle even minor disciplinary violations [4]. Thus, the question of whether adequate due process is present when law enforcement and students inevitably interact in the school building must be considered, particularly what transpires before a student is potentially exposed to criminal charges during schoolhouse interrogations conducted by police officers.  The Supreme Court must expand their application of the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in public school settings in order to ensure adequate due process is being awarded to students subjected to schoolhouse interrogations. 

The Fifth Amendment grants the general citizen the right against being compelled to act as a “witness against himself” during criminal interrogations and hearings alike [5]. This right, better known as that against self-incrimination, has been debated at the Supreme Court level time and time again regarding its application to the general citizen. However, the Supreme Court has established a body of precedent which, as opposed to making the term “general citizen” apply to all, distinguishes it from being a schoolchild. As a result, there has been a murky application of the right against self-incrimination in public schools as a distinct environment, particularly through reading students their Miranda rights in which they are told they have the right to remain silent and that anything they may say could be used against them in a court of law. The lack of a definitive role of the right against self-incrimination in public schools can allow law enforcement to act arbitrarily when interrogating students. Thus, the expansion of the right against self-incrimination in public schools would work to weaken the detriments imposed by the expansion of zero discipline policies. 

The right against self-incrimination protects one from “implicating oneself in a crime or exposing oneself to criminal prosecution” [6]. The Supreme Court has recognized a violation of this Fifth Amendment right where interrogational statements are elicited involuntarily. In the case Miranda v. Arizona (1966), the Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement personnel must be cognizant of the procedural safeguards implemented while an individual is subjected to a “custodial interrogation”, an interrogation that occurs after an individual has been significantly deprived of their freedom of action, such as by being taken into custody [7].  In its majority opinion, the Court outlined what are now known as “Miranda rights” as proper safeguards to be taken prior to a custodial interrogation [8]. Only after interrogees are informed of these rights are they then adequately made aware of their right against self-incrimination in a custodial setting [9]. Unfortunately, not everyone, and especially not young school children, is aware that they don’t have to speak when being questioned by an intimidating and authoritative figure such as a police officer. In this way, custodial interrogations that withhold one’s Miranda rights are inherently involuntary as law enforcement are effectively preventing interogees from exercising their free will, the ability to personally decide whether or not to criminalize themselves. Of course, this prevention isn’t always as explicit as physically or verbally forcing someone to answer a question. However, refusing to provide one with the knowledge that they otherwise might not hold of their right against self-incrimination can be just as damaging as the former example, especially when regarded in the context of age. 

The Supreme Court of North Carolina challenged the concept of mirandizing students in the school environment in the case, J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2011). J.D.B, a 13-year-old boy, was removed from his classroom by a uniformed police officer and escorted to an isolated conference room where he was questioned by both police and school officials for 30 minutes straight without a guardian [10]. He wasn’t informed of any of his Miranda rights prior to the interrogation but rather was told by a police officer that he risked being sent to juvenile detention if he failed to confess [11]. The police officers’ coercive statement of course prompted J.D.B to confess to the crimes he was accused of, and he was summoned to appear in court thereafter [12]. In its ruling, North Carolina reasoned that J.D.B. was not entitled to his Miranda rights as he was not subjected to a custodial interrogation that would otherwise require them [13]. North Carolina considered what it meant for J.D.B, as a student, to be placed in a “custodial interrogation”- was a police officer standing guard at the door? Were there handcuffs present? Ultimately, the question came down to whether J.D.B. had experienced a significant restraint on his freedom of movement- physically and verbally. After granting certiorari to this case, the Supreme Court built on its ruling in Miranda by setting the precedent that age must be a factor taken into consideration by police officers when determining whether a child has been placed under custodial interrogation and thus require their Miranda rights [14]. Its decision hinged on a previous legal test set in Thompson v. Keohane (1995) which outlined how to objectively decide whether a suspect has been subjected to a custodial interrogation. The two prongs of the test are as follows: 1) “What were the circumstances surrounding the interrogation?” and 2) “Given those circumstances, would a reasonable person have felt he or she was at liberty to terminate the interrogation and leave?” [15]. The Supreme Court used the second prong as central to their analysis, highlighting that age can potentially affect how a reasonable person might gauge the liberties they hold during an interrogation [16]. Especially in the context of a school setting, it’s difficult to imagine that a schoolchild would come to the conclusion that they can remain silent, much less get up and leave an isolated room in the face of intimidating police officers interrogating them and an assistant principal urging them to “do the right thing” without a follow up of a slew of harsh consequences [17]. 

In her majority opinion, Justice Sotomayor recognized how the police officer could have taken advantage of J.D.B’s age when telling him he could go to juvenile detention if he remained quiet about his alleged crime. Had he been mirandized, J.D.B would’ve likely not incriminated himself after being told that statement. The idea that a reasonable adult does not experience the world in the same way a reasonable child would is highlighted in this Supreme Court ruling. More importantly however, is the idea that a reasonable schoolchild wouldn’t experience the world in the same way a reasonable adult would. This is a fact that the Supreme Court has recognized time and time again as a primary justification for restricting students’ constitutional rights. However, in the context of strengthening students’ constitutional rights, such as by evaluating how a public school environment might be uniquely detrimental to the way a reasonable child would perceive their liberties during a schoolhouse interrogation, the Supreme Court has failed to definitively rule on this matter. While officers are constitutionally mandated to consider age in the decision whether to grant Miranda rights, they’re not mandated to consider the distinct effect of the public school environment coupled with age on a child’s perception of their freewill. 

In fact, in the original ruling of the case, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled out any potential compulsory effect of a public school environment on a student’s perception of freedom of movement that would have cultivated a custodial interrogation, emphasizing the “typical” restrictions that all students are subjected to on a daily basis as a child under school care [18]. While North Carolina’s ruling is specific to the state of North Carolina, it did expose a harmful belief in the legal system that the effects of unnecessary zero discipline policies and a high-handed police presence are “typical” limitations on student rights. An overbearing police presence in an environment that’s meant to be conducive to learning isn’t the “typical” restriction every public school student is traditionally forced to endure. The influx of police officers in public schools was only ever needed to uphold zero discipline policies for issues that are not nearly as prominent anymore [19]. Despite a general decrease in juvenile crime though, more public schools have gotten more tough with the way they go about maintaining a zero discipline environment, such as by installing metal detectors and wanding down students every morning, confiscating cell phones upon entering the school building, and having many police officers to enforce their oftentimes minor policies [20]. These structures inevitably symbolize a restriction of students’ liberties in the schoolhouse, making them more likely to comply with authoritative figures and “to tell police what they think the police want to hear” [21].  It’s reasonable to assume that police officers could take advantage of the inherent power dynamic children perceive within their school environments to ensure students cooperate with their instructions because students want to avoid provoking conflict [22].  The North Carolina Supreme Court failed to consider how public schools have thus been steadily going beyond the “typical” restrictions usually imposed on students, overlooking the inherent custodial nature of school settings while questioning a student. Miranda v. Arizona never limited the definition of a custodial interrogation to one where an individual is only physically deprived of their freedoms nor was it limited to an explicit restraint of freedom either. That is why the two pronged reasonable standard test in Thompson v. Keohane was established; to recognize and account for interrogations in environments that may implicitly impose restraints on freedom, such as that of a public school.  

In the landmark Supreme Court case, Tinker v. Des Moines (1969), the court upheld students’ rights to express non-disruptive symbolic speech on the grounds that students do not automatically give up their constitutional rights when they step into a school building [23]. The majority opinion noted that in order for a school to justify the suppression of a student’s First Amendment rights, there must be a substantial threat to the academic safety and order of the school [24]. This general line of reasoning has since defined other landmark cases that have ruled on students’ constitutional rights. In New Jersey v. T.L.O (1985), the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment’s probable cause provision does not apply to public school students because a student’s expectation of privacy must be balanced with the school’s unique duty to maintain an educational environment [25]. Time and time again, the Supreme Court has recognized a curtailment of student rights as necessary only when failing to do so would substantially disrupt the academic environment. Placing the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination under the same scope, it can be reasoned that granting a student their Miranda rights during a general schoolhouse interrogation would surely not pose any immediate threats to the safety and academic efficiency of the school setting. However, failing to do so poses an imminent threat to the freewill and thus, safety of students. If not curtailed to ensure school order, then constitutionally, there is no valid reason to withhold a student’s right against self-incrimination in the schoolhouse. 

The Supreme Court ultimately is left to define the parameters of a custodial interrogation. In the age of zero discipline policies and excessive law enforcement entanglement with public schools, it’s important that the Supreme Court sets a precedent regarding how to go about ensuring the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination is protected for students in public schools. Granting police officers the liberty to ignore the impact of the school setting on a student’s perception of their freewill during a schoolhouse interrogation surely contradicts the “students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gates” sentiment ruled in Tinker [26]. This Supreme Court ruling guarantees that every student maintains their constitutional rights while in school, including students attending schools with structures synonymous to prison-like intimidating atmospheres that Miranda recognized as custodial and opposite environments alike. There is no longer, and quite frankly never was a standard depiction of public schools in the U.S. and we must accommodate the way we aid public school students across the country accordingly. 

[1] End Zero Tolerance, ACLU 2020, online at https://www.endzerotolerance.org/discipline-q-a (visited March 1, 2021).

[2] Elora Mukherjee, “Criminalizing the Classroom -- The Over-Policing of New York City Schools”, NYCLU, March 2007, online at https://www.nyclu.org/sites/default/files/publications/nyclu_pub_criminalizing_the_classroom.pdf (visited March 1, 2021).

[3] Christopher Boccanfuso and Megan Kuhfeld, “Multiple Responses, Promising Results: Evidence-Based, Non-Punitive Alternatives to Zero Tolerance”, Research-to-Results Child Trends 2 (2011).

[4] End Zero Tolerance, ACLU 2020, online at https://www.endzerotolerance.org/discipline-q-a (visited March 1, 2021).

[5] Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, online at https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fifth_amendment (visited March 31st, 2021)

[6] Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School, online at https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/self-incrimination (visited March 1, 2021). 

[7] Miranda v. Arizona, USCourts. Accessed February 17, 2021. 

[8] id.

[9] id.

[10] J.D.B. v. North Carolina. 564 U. S. ____ (2011).

[11] id.

[12] id.

[13] J.D.B v. North Carolina. 686 S.E.2d 135 (2009).

[14] J.D.B. v. North Carolina. 564 U. S. ____ (2011).

[15] id.

[16] id.

[17] id.

[18] J.D.B v. North Carolina. 686 S.E.2d 135 (2009).

[19] End Zero Tolerance, ACLU 2020, online at https://www.endzerotolerance.org/discipline-q-a (visited March 1, 2021).

[20] “Are Zero Tolerance Policies Effective in the Schools?”, American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force, 855 (2008). 

[21] Berry C. Feld, “Police Interrogation of Juveniles: An Empirical Study of Policy and Practice”, Northwestern Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 244 (2006).  

[22] Berry C. Feld, “Police Interrogation of Juveniles: An Empirical Study of Policy and Practice”, Northwestern Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, 230 (2006). 

[23] “Tinker v. Des Moines.” Oyez. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/21

[24] id.

[25] New Jersey v. T.L.O. 469 U.S. 325 (1985)

[26] “Tinker v. Des Moines.” Oyez. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/21