Miranda and Right to Have Attorney

[bsredneckgirl]

My question involves juvenile law in the State of: Virginia

Does a 15 year old have the right to have an attorney present and be read their rights before being questioned? I ask due to the legal troubles of my son and when the police came to my home to question him they never gave him his miranda rights and never said he had a right to have an attorney present. They just started questioning him.

[Mr. Knowitall]

Miranda relates to custodial interrogation. If you called the police to your house and they performed a preliminary investigation of your report before taking your son into custody (if they even took your son into custody), Miranda may not apply to those preliminary questions. (Your son will have to go over the details with his lawyer.) Miranda relates to statements that the prosecutor intends to use in court, so if the police obtained statements in violation of your son's Miranda rights the remedy would be to seek the exclusion of those statements from trial.

We don't have enough facts to be at all specific.

[PTPD22]

Yes, juveniles have the same rights to council and rights against self incrimination as an adult. In some states they even have additional protections. However, as Mr. Knowitall points out, that does not mean that the police questioning of your son was improper. In my experience, Miranda requirements are both the most commonly known-about restrictions on police conduct and the most commonly misunderstood or misinterpreted. On the surface, it sounds like the police questioning of your son was proper.

[cbg]

Because we see Briscoe and Greene reading the perp their Miranda rights as they arrest him or her, on every episode of Law and Order, people have come to assume that it's required before the police can say anything to the arrest-ee. It makes for good drama but it's not how it works in real life or what is required by law.