Courts often assume that youth and adult suspects are equally capable of making decisions about whether to talk to police officers—decisions that carry serious long-term consequences. In Miranda v. Arizona, the Supreme Court ruled that prior to custodial interrogation, police officers must remind suspects of their rights to silence and legal counsel, and a suspect must waive their rights “voluntarily, knowingly, and intelligently” for police to continue questioning. This legal standard was extended to youth without affording them additional protections, despite decades of research on adolescent cognitive and socioemotional development demonstrating that youth have inherent difficulties understanding and appreciating their Miranda rights. Navigating interrogation situations is likely even more challenging for youth of color, who not only face disadvantages due to their developmental immaturity, but also systemic racism within the legal system. As biased police practices put youth of color at a higher risk of police contact, it is especially important to consider how adolescent development and racial bias interact to impact youths’ ability to make valid Miranda waivers. Researchers and legal advocates have made multiple youth interrogation reform recommendations, but many of these recommendations fall short by failing to take into full account the impact of adolescent development and racial bias on youths’ ability to navigate interrogation. This paper analyzes proposals for reform through a developmental and racial equity lens and makes recommendations about future research needed to determine the most effective way to protect youth during interrogation.

Custodial suspects must be informed of their Miranda rights (Miranda v. Arizona, 1966) prior to police questioning. Since this landmark decision, scholars have rigorously studied Miranda comprehension and reasoning among vulnerable groups including those with intellectual disabilities (ID). However, the focus on ID has left arrestees with limited cognitive capacities (i.e., LCCs with IQs between 70 and 85) entirely overlooked. The current dataset addressed this oversight using a large (N = 820) sample of pretrial defendants who had completed the Standardized Assessment of Miranda Abilities (SAMA). Traditional (i.e., ID and no-ID) criterion groups were first analyzed with the standard error of measurement (SEM) removed. Second, a nuanced three-group framework included defendants with LCCs.Results indicate that LCC defendants are vulnerable to impaired Miranda comprehension (i.e., limited recall of the Miranda warning and deficits in Miranda-related vocabulary knowledge). Not surprisingly, their waiver decisions were often impaired by crucial misconceptions (e.g., seeing the investigating officers as beneficently on their side). The practical implications of these findings were underscored with respect to Constitutional safeguards for this critically important group, who have appeared to fall through the cracks in the criminal justice system.

No abstract

Forensic evaluations have advanced considerably with the development of specialized measures validated on forensic and correctional samples. Prior to this progress, such evaluations relied heavily on extrapolations from general psychological tests to crucial, legally relevant questions. Since then, decades of empirical work have produced forensic assessment instruments (FAIs) addressing psycholegal standards in addition to forensically relevant instruments (FRIs) examining issues central to forensic practice (e.g., malingering) but not the standards themselves. This article provides a critical examination of the development, validation, and modern applications of six published FAIs that each address one of three broad criminal forensic issues (i.e., insanity, competency to stand trial, and Miranda abilities and waivers). Evaluations of the measures' reliability and validity particularly in forensic samples are highlighted. To complement FAIs, FRIs related to response styles are briefly explored. As a primary goal, forensic practitioners are provided with the knowledge and background about FAIs to enhance their criminal forensic practices.