David Levell v. California

• Decision Date: 08 December 1980
• Docket Number: No. 80-5058,80-5058
• Citation: 449 U.S. 1043,101 S.Ct. 622,66 L.Ed.2d 504
• Parties: DAVID LEVELL W., a Minor v. State of CALIFORNIA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

449 U.S. 1043

101 S.Ct. 622

66 L.Ed.2d 504

DAVID LEVELL W., a Minor

v State of CALIFORNIA

No. 80-5058

Supreme Court of the United States

December 8, 1980

On petition for writ of certiorari to the Court of Appeal of California for the Second Appellate District.

The petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.

Justice MARSHALL, dissenting.

Petitioner, a 13-year-old minor, was taken from his home to a police station for questioning by police officers who had neither an arrest warrant nor probable cause for his arrest. The court below held that there was no violation of petitioner's constitutional rights because the officers acted on instructions from his mother. Because I believe the case presents an important question concerning a parent's authority to waive her minor child's right under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to be free from "unreasonable seizures," I dissent from denial of the petition for a writ of certiorari.

I

On March 8, 1979, an investigator with the Los Angeles Police Department told two of his subordinates that he had been in contact with a mother about one of her children who allegedly had been involved in a burglary. He told the officers that the mother had agreed to bring the minor to the police station the previous day but had failed to do so, and he instructed the officers to go to the woman's house and find out when she would bring her son to the station.

At the house, the officers were invited into a bedroom where they saw petitioner's mother lying in bed. The officers informed her of the reason for their visit and asked why she had not brought her son to the police station the previous day as she had promised. Petitioner's mother explained that her car had broken down, and when the officers asked her if she could bring the boy in that day, she told them that her car was still not working. The officers next inquired where her son was. The mother pointed to petitioner, who was lying in another bed in the same room, and told him to wake up. The officers then asked her when she would be able to bring her son in and she replied: "Well, you officers are here. You can take him down." She told the officers that she had been having trouble with her son and wanted to know if he had been involved in a burglary so she could notify his probation officer. She then told petitioner to get out of bed and get dressed because the officers were waiting for him. Petitioner dressed and left the house with the officers, who placed him in handcuffs before driving him to the police station. At the station, petitioner was given the warnings required by Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). He indicated that he understood them, waived his rights, and confessed to the burglary.¹

A petition was filed against petitioner in juvenile court charging him with burglary in violation of § 459 of the Cal.Penal Code Ann. (West Supp.1980). Petitioner filed a motion to suppress the confession he made at the police station as the fruit of an illegal arrest. At the combined suppression and adjudication hearing, the State conceded that the police officers had neither an arrest warrant nor probable cause to arrest petitioner at the time he was taken to the station for questioning. Nonetheless, the court denied the suppression motion and relied on the confession in sustaining the charge against petitioner. At the dispositional hearing, the court ordered that petitioner be removed from the custody of his mother. Physical confinement was set at a maximum period of two years.

On appeal, a divided California Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment of the juvenile court. The majority found no proof that petitioner had agreed to accompany the officers to the station. But relying on California cases that had "recognized and acknowledged the supervisorial authority and control of parents over their children," ² the majority held that petitioner's constitutional rights were not violated because both petitioner and the police officers complied with his mother's request that he be taken to the station for questioning.³ The Supreme Court of California denied a petition for a hearing without opinion.⁴

II

If petitioner had been five years older when the arrest occurred, there would be no question that the judgment below must be reversed. In Dunaway v. New York, 442 U.S. 200, 216, 99 S.Ct. 2248, 2258, 60 L.Ed.2d 824 (1979), we held that "detention for custodial interrogation-regardless of its label-intrudes so severely on interests protected by the Fourth Amendment as necessarily to trigger the traditional safeguards against illegal arrests." Here, the court below specifically found that petitioner did not personally consent to accompany the officers to the station.⁵ The officers did not ask petitioner if he was willing to accompany them to the station. And the officers did not believe that petitioner was accompanying them voluntarily, for they placed him in handcuffs to prevent him escaping en route to the station. Moreover, as respondent concedes, the officers had neither a warrant nor probable cause to arrest petitioner when they took him to the station for questioning. If he were an adult, petitioner's subsequent confession would have to be suppressed as the fruit of an illegal arrest. Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 83 S.Ct. 407, 9 L.Ed.2d 441 (1963).⁶

The court below reached a different result solely because petitioner is a minor. Thus, the case squarely presents the question whether a constitutional violation occurred when petitioner, a minor, was taken from his home to a police station for questioning by police officers who, although they had his mother's consent to their action, had neither an arrest warrant nor probable cause for petitioner's arrest. I believe that the Court should consider this issue.

The Court has never previously considered the scope of Fourth Amendment protections when asserted by a minor.⁷ Indeed, we have never attempted to define the "totality of the relationship of the juvenile and the state." In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 13, 87 S.Ct. 1428, 1436, 18 L.Ed.2d 527 (1967). Nonetheless our cases have established that minors "are 'persons' under our Constitution . . . possessed of fundamental rights which the state must respect. . . ." Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 511, 89 S.Ct. 733, 739, 21 L.Ed.2d 731 (1969). As we explained in Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 74, 96 S.Ct. 2831, 2843, 49 L.Ed.2d 788 (1976): "Constitutional rights do not mature and come into being magically only when one attains the state-defined age of maturity. Minors, as well as adults, are protected by the Constitution and possess constitutional rights." ⁸

Moreover, our cases have exhibited particular sensitivity to minors' claims to constitutional protection against deprivations of liberty by the State. Because loss of liberty is no less a deprivation for a child than for an adult, In re Gault, 387 U.S., at 27, 87 S.Ct., at 1443, we have held that a minor's right with respect to many of these claims is virtually coextensive with an adult's. Thus, we have extended the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee against deprivation of liberty without due process of law to minors involved in juvenile proceedings. We have held that a minor facing juvenile charges is entitled to notice, counsel, and confrontation of witnesses. Id., 387 U.S., at 33, 36-37, 57, 87 S.Ct., at 1446, 1448-1449, 1459. " 'Neither man nor child can be allowed to stand condemned by methods which flout constitutional requirements of due process of law.' " Id., at 13, 87 S.Ct., at 1436 quoting with approval Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596, 601, 68 S.Ct. 302, 304, 92 L.Ed. 224 (1948) (Douglas, J., plurality opinion). Similarly, our cases have accorded minors the right against self-incrimination, In re Gault, supra, protection against coerced confessions, Gallegos v. Colorado, 370 U.S. 49, 82 S.Ct. 1209, 8 L.Ed.2d 325 (1962); Haley v. Ohio, supra, guarantees against double jeopardy, Breed v. Jones, 421 U.S. 519, 95 S.Ct. 1779, 44 L.Ed.2d 346 (1975), and the presumption of innocence implemented by the government's burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970).

I believe that if the Court examined this issue, we would be hard-pressed to find reasons to distinguish these rights, which clearly apply to minors from the Fourth Amendment right invoked by petitioner.⁹ No less than due process pro- tections, the guarantee against unreasonable governmental searches and seizures "defines the rights of the individual and delimits the powers which the state may exercise." In re Gault, supra, 387 U.S., at 20, 87 S.Ct., at 1439 (footnote omitted). As the Court has stated, the Fourth Amendment protects "[t]he security of one's privacy against arbitrary intrusion by the police. . . ." Wolf v. Colorado, 338 U.S. 25, 27, 69 S.Ct. 1359, 1361, 93 L.Ed. 1782 (1949). Neither the court below nor respondent goes so far as to suggest that minors enjoy no protection of this personal privacy under the Fourth Amendment. Instead, respondent argues that the court below correctly held that petitioner's mother had lawful authority to instruct the police officers to take her son to the station for questioning. Respondent contends that inasmuch as petitioner's mother could have brought him to the station herself, she merely authorized the officers to do what she could have done herself.

Essential to this claim is the assumption that a parent's right to guide her child's upbringing ¹⁰ includes the authority to waive a constitutional right that the child may have.¹¹ I find this assumption extremely disturbing for I see no way to cabin its implications. If a parent may, without even consulting the child, waive his constitutional rights, then the police may constitutionally coerce confessions from minors so long as the officers have the parents'...