Post-Conviction Brief on Unreliability of Juvenile Statements

This post-conviction brief cautions against crediting a juvenile’s custodial statements. Drawing on social science and U.S. Supreme Court precedent recognizing that youth are more vulnerable to pressure, more compliant with authority, and less capable of understanding long-term consequences, the brief explains that adolescents are disproportionately susceptible to suggestion and false confession. It details how factors such as isolation, leading questioning, minimization tactics, exposure to evidence, and failure to ensure meaningful comprehension of Miranda warnings undermine the voluntariness and reliability of juvenile admissions.