In re M.H.

• Decision Date: 03 December 2020
• Docket Number: No. 2019-0621,2019-0621
• Citation: 168 N.E.3d 439,163 Ohio St.3d 93
• Parties: IN RE M.H.
• Court: Ohio Supreme Court

163 Ohio St.3d 93

168 N.E.3d 439

IN RE M.H.

No. 2019-0621

Supreme Court of Ohio.

Submitted April 29, 2020

Decided December 3, 2020.

Michael C. O'Malley, Cuyahoga County Prosecuting Attorney, and Jennifer M. Meyer, Cleveland, and Anthony T. Miranda, Assistant Prosecuting Attorneys, for appellee.

Mark A. Stanton, Cuyahoga County Public Defender, and Paul A. Kuzmins, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.

Dave Yost, Attorney General, Benjamin M. Flowers, State Solicitor, and Samuel C. Peterson, Deputy Solicitor, urging affirmance for amicus curiae Attorney General Dave Yost.

Juvenile Law Center and Marsha L. Levick; and Ballard Spahr, L.L.P., and Lisa B. Swaminathan, Philadelphia, urging reversal for amicus curiae Juvenile Law Center.

Kennedy, J. {¶ 1} In this discretionary appeal from the Eighth District Court of Appeals, we are asked whether a child-abuse investigator employed by a county children-services agency must give the warnings required by the Supreme Court of the United States in Miranda v. Arizona , 384 U.S. 436, 444, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966), before questioning a child suspected of committing child abuse. We are also asked whether the admission at trial of an incriminating statement obtained from a child suspect by a county child-abuse investigator violates the due-process protections of the Fourteenth Amendment.

{¶ 2} Binding precedent answers both questions. We held in State v. Jackson that a child-abuse investigator employed by a county children-services agency is not required to provide the Miranda warnings before questioning a suspect in a child-abuse investigation when the investigator is neither a law-enforcement officer nor an agent of law enforcement acting under the direction or control of the police. 154 Ohio St.3d 542, 2018-Ohio-2169, 116 N.E.3d 1240, ¶ 15, 30. And in Colorado v. Connelly , the Supreme Court of the United States explained that "[a]bsent police conduct causally related to the confession, there is simply no basis for concluding that any state actor has deprived a criminal defendant of due process of law." ( Emphasis added.) 479 U.S. 157, 164, 107 S.Ct. 515, 93 L.Ed.2d 473 (1986).

{¶ 3} The evidence demonstrates that at the time the child-abuse investigator interviewed the suspect in this case, the investigator was neither a law-enforcement officer nor acting under the direction or control of the police. Further, the confession obtained was not causally related to any conduct of the police. The questioning in this case therefore violated neither Miranda nor the suspect's federal due-process rights, and the court of appeals correctly concluded that the confession resulting from it was admissible at trial.

{¶ 4} Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the Eighth District Court of Appeals.

Facts and Procedural History

{¶ 5} The Cuyahoga County Department of Children and Family Services ("CCDCFS") received a referral reporting that 13-year-old M.H. had engaged in sexual activity with J.M., the 12-year-old daughter of M.H.'s mother's boyfriend. Esther Bradley, a child-protection specialist in CCDCFS's Sex Abuse Intake Unit, interviewed J.M. and told her mother to submit a police report.

{¶ 6} Bradley opened a sex-abuse investigation and left at M.H.'s residence for M.H.'s mother a letter specifying a time and place for Bradley to interview M.H. According to M.H.'s mother, neither the letter nor Bradley in a subsequent telephone call informed her that M.H. was a suspect in an investigation, but M.H.'s mother was aware of allegations that M.H. had touched J.M. while she was asleep. M.H.'s mother did not know that she could decline the interview, and she brought M.H. to CCDCFS to be questioned. Bradley had told M.H.'s mother that it would be a private interview and that she would not be permitted to accompany M.H. Bradley took M.H. to a room and closed the door, leaving his mother in the waiting room. Bradley did not advise M.H. of his Miranda rights prior to the interview, and M.H. admitted during the interview that he had engaged in sexual activity with J.M. Bradley prepared a report for the police.

{¶ 7} The Cleveland police department assigned the case to Detective Christina Cottom, and on August 24, 2016, she filed a juvenile-delinquency complaint alleging that M.H. committed two counts of rape and two counts of gross sexual imposition. The state moved in limine to admit M.H.'s incriminating statement, and M.H. moved to suppress it, asserting that his statement was involuntary, that he had not been advised of or validly waived his Miranda rights, and that his statement's probative value did not outweigh its prejudice to his defense.

{¶ 8} At the suppression hearing, Bradley testified that she had a dual purpose in interviewing M.H. The first was to determine whether any type of inappropriate sexual activity had occurred between M.H. and J.M., "and if anything criminal happened, then [Bradley would] pass that on to law enforcement." The second purpose was to ensure J.M.'s safety and make sure that nothing inappropriate occurred while the investigation was ongoing. Bradley admitted that CCDCFS has a relationship with law enforcement, that she regularly shares information with the police, and that she knew that a detective had been assigned to the case. She also admitted that she had previously been employed as a police detective in Atlanta, Georgia, and was aware of the Miranda warnings. But she explained that in her work for CCDCFS, she was "not law enforcement" and did not have arrest powers; rather, her role was to make sure that families and children receive the services they need. Bradley could not remember whether she had been contacted by the police before she interviewed M.H., but she "[did not] think so."

{¶ 9} Detective Cottom testified that she normally coordinates with CCDCFS to interview the alleged victim jointly but that in this case, Bradley had interviewed both J.M. and M.H. before Detective Cottom was able to contact her. For this reason, the detective never interviewed M.H., and she testified that she did not direct Bradley to interview M.H. on behalf of the police or tell Bradley what questions to ask him. Detective Cottom explained that she did not even know that the interview had occurred until after she received Bradley's report approximately two months later.

{¶ 10} The trial court granted the motion to suppress, finding that "the relationship between [CCDCFS and] the State [is] a little close for comfort." The court concluded that M.H.'s statement had been obtained in violation of his due-process rights and that it was inadmissible under Evid.R. 403(A). It also denied the state's motion in limine.

{¶ 11} The Eighth District Court of Appeals reversed and remanded. The lead opinion recognized that a social worker may have a duty to give a suspect the Miranda warnings when the social worker acts under the direction or control of law enforcement. 2018-Ohio-4848, 2018 WL 6433102, ¶ 22. But here, the lead opinion concluded, "there is no evidence that [Bradley] was acting under the direction or control of law enforcement when she interviewed M.H., despite her cooperation with law enforcement." Id. at ¶ 35. It also concluded that M.H. was not in custody during the interview and that Bradley had not compelled him to incriminate himself in violation of his due-process rights. Id. at ¶ 35, 39-40. The lead opinion noted that M.H. was not under arrest, his mother had brought him to the interview, he had not been ordered to appear at a police station, he was not restrained, the door to the interview room was closed but not locked, the interview lasted approximately 40 minutes, and he was free to leave the building after the interview. It also explained that "[t]here is no evidence—or allegations—of any threats, coercion, suggestions, restraints, or physical deprivation or harm to M.H." Id. at ¶ 40. Lastly, the lead opinion determined that Evid.R. 403(A) would not preclude admission of M.H.'s statement because the record did not demonstrate that admitting the statement would be unfairly prejudicial. Id. at ¶ 41-42.

{¶ 12} We accepted M.H.'s discretionary appeal on the following three propositions of law:

(1) The statement of a child to a government social worker may be involuntary and violate due process even when the government social worker was not required to give Miranda warnings.

(2) A child does not feel free to leave when a [sic] he is driven to [a] government agency for questioning by a parent and separated from that parent and interrogated in a private interrogation room without being told he is free to leave and free to not cooperate.

(3) A child-suspect must be provided Miranda warnings when that child is interrogated by a social worker who is exercising her statutory duty to investigate child abuse allegations and does so cooperatively with the police on a regular and institutional basis.

See 156 Ohio St.3d 1452, 2019-Ohio-2780, 125 N.E.3d 947.

Positions of the Parties

{¶ 13} M.H. maintains that in determining whether a child has given a voluntary confession or perceived himself or herself to be in custody, courts must account for the cognitive differences and disparities in social and emotional functioning that separate juveniles from adults. He asserts that children as young as M.H. should be presumed as a class to be unable to give a voluntary statement, because cognitive and behavioral science suggest that they are developmentally at risk of providing an involuntary or false confession. Further, he contends that his statement was made under highly coercive circumstances: his mother had taken him to the interview, and she and Bradley were both authority figures; Bradley was a former homicide detective who was trained in coercive interrogation techniques; and M.H. had been separated from his mother at a government building staffed by armed guards. Also, M.H. argues that children are in a state of perpetual custody of parents, teachers, and others and...