Maryland’s Child Interrogation Protection Act is once again under the microscope, as Harford County Sheriff Jeff Gahler says the nearly two-year-old law is impeding his officers’ hunt for the gun used Friday in a fatal shooting at Joppatowne High School.
“This legislature has handcuffed police,” Gahler said during a press conference Friday afternoon, shortly after the shooting. “There are families of every other student in that school, and the parents of the shooter, who have a right to know why we all stand here today and why there's a person who has been shot in one of our schools, and we are not allowed to ask the person who committed that act because of this crazy legislature we have in this state.”
Gahler and other Maryland law enforcement leaders began criticizing the law, known as CIPA, even before it took effect in October 2022. They say it prohibits police from interviewing minors in their custody.
But that’s not entirely accurate. At its core, CIPA is designed to help children and teens understand their rights when talking to police.
“All people in the United States have the right to remain silent and not incriminate themselves,” said Kimber Watts, the supervising attorney in the forensic mental health division of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender and a longtime juvenile defender. “Miranda versus Arizona said that police have to advise people of their rights before a custodial interrogation — custodial meaning you're in police custody.”
The Supreme Court ruling in Miranda versus Arizona led to the warning police give when they arrest someone: “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
But children and adolescents often don’t understand what that means.
“They don't have the same processing abilities as adults do to understand the situation that they're in as quickly as adults do,” Watts said. “Many children involved in police interrogations have either mental illness or learning disabilities, and they are especially vulnerable by virtue of just being adolescents and children as to coercive tactics by police.”
Research has also found that juveniles are more likely than adults to give false confessions during police interrogations.
That’s where CIPA comes in. The law requires police to notify the parents or guardian of a minor they take into custody. If the child’s parents have not hired a lawyer, police also must call a hotline staffed 24 hours a day by the Public Defender’s Office. When the lawyers answer, they read from a child-friendly script that explains what’s happening and what rights the child has.
Watts said children often have a hard time with the concept that they can’t be penalized for refusing to talk with the police.
“If you think about it in the context of a family, if your mom says, ‘Who took the last cookie from the cookie jar?’ and you don't say anything, she may very well think that you were the one who took that last cookie, whereas the court is not allowed to make that assumption, and so we are clear to explain that to kids,” she said.
Though the lawyers give the youth advice on whether to talk to the police, ultimately that choice is up to them. Watts didn’t have exact numbers on how many kids decline to talk to the police as a result of the CIPA, but she said she has seen an increase in the number of kids choosing to exercise their right to remain silent. That’s likely why law enforcement officials like Gahler dislike the law so much.
Reached by phone this week, Gahler said he does not think children and teens had any trouble understanding their rights before CIPA took effect.
He referred to the teen accused in Friday’s shooting.
“Prior to this law taking effect, this juvenile would have been read his Miranda rights and would have been able to make a decision,” Gahler said. “He made an adult decision — he made a terrible decision of being in possession of this gun in the school and deciding to use that gun to take a human being’s life. … He’s been charged as an adult. He's going to be tried as an adult. So do I think a 16 year old should be allowed to make an adult decision after all those adult decisions? Yes, I do.”
