Yarborough v. Alvarado

Santa Fe Springs, the location of the murder.

The respondent Michael Alvarado agreed to help his friend Paul Soto steal a truck in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Santa Fe Springs, California. Soto pulled out a gun and approached the driver of the truck, demanding the keys, while Alvarado hid by the driver's side door. The driver refused and was shot and killed by Soto. Afterwards, Alvarado helped hide the gun. Los Angeles County Sheriff's detective Cheryl Comstock led the investigation of the crime. During the investigation Comstock contacted Alvarado's parents, saying that she wished to speak with Alvarado. Alvarado's parents brought him to the police station to be interviewed. Comstock brought Alvarado into an interview room and questioned him for two hours. Alvarado's parents asked to be present during the interview but were not allowed in by police.[2] Alvarado admitted during questions that he had helped his friend try to steal the truck and that he had helped hide the gun.

Before custodial interrogations, police are required to give suspects a Miranda warning that informs suspects of their legal rights during interrogation. However, Alvarado was not given a Miranda warning at any time during questioning.[2] This would form part of the basis for Alvarado's legal defense.

The State of California charged Alvarado and his friend with first-degree murder and attempted robbery. Alvarado attempted to suppress his statements given during the Comstock interview on the basis that he was not read his Miranda rights. The trial court denied the motion on the basis that Alvarado was not in police custody at the time he gave his statement. Alvarado was subsequently convicted,[3] primarily based on statements Alvarado made during his police interrogation.[4] Alvarado's conviction was reduced by the trial judge to second-degree murder for his comparatively minor role in the offense.[3] The California Courts of Appeal affirmed the conviction and agreed that Alvarado was not in custody.[5] The Supreme Court of California declined discretionary review.

Much of Alvarado's trial focused on whether Alvarado was in custody or not during his police interview. According to Thompson v. Keohane, to determine whether someone is in custody the courts apply a reasonable person test: whether a reasonable person would have felt free to leave or not.[6]

After his conviction, Alvarado filed for a writ of habeas corpus claiming that the custody analysis was incorrect because the court had not considered Alvarado's age in its reasonable person test. Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA), a federal court can grant habeas corpus to a person held due to a state court judgment if the state court judgement "resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States".[7] Alvarado's habeas corpus petition thus depended on demonstrating that the state court's custody determination was more than debatable, but objectively incorrect.

The United States District Court for the Central District of California agreed that the state court rulings were correct,[8] however the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. The Court of Appeals held that the state court made a mistake in not accounting for Alvarado's youth and inexperience when evaluating custody.[9]

Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote a concurrence that agreed with the finding that the state court's decision was reasonable.[24] However, O'Connor held that there could be cases in which age would be relevant to custody analysis.[24] This would be affirmed by the Court in 2011 in J.D.B. v. North Carolina.[25]

Justice Breyer, the author of the opinion for the dissent

Associate Justice Stephen Breyer wrote a dissenting opinion, with whom Justice Stevens, Justice Souter, and Justice Ginsburg joined. Breyer disagreed with the majority's holding that fair-minded jurists could disagree on whether Alvarado was in custody, holding that the facts compelled the single conclusion that Alvarado was in custody.[26] Breyer held that the actions the police did not do, such as arrest Alvarado or threaten him, were not as important as what the police did do.[27] Specifically, the police had Alvarado's parents bring him to the police station, brought Alvarado to an interrogation room, kept his parents out, and questioned him for two hours.[27]

In the matter of Alvarado's age, Breyer found that it was relevant to the custody analysis.[28] Further, Breyer held that nothing in the law prevents a judge from including age in the custody analysis.[28] Breyer called the discussion of experience with law enforcement misleading; while experience with law enforcement can be difficult to determine, Breyer noted that Alvarado's age was a known objective fact.[29]

A note published in The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology supported the decision on procedural grounds, noting that using age in the custody analysis was not a precedent established by the Supreme Court. The note argued that establishing such broad legal precedent was outside the bounds of the authority of the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court was right to reverse.[30] Instead, the note supported the state court who had applied the law as the Supreme Court had in the past.[31]

Berry Feld, professor at University of Minnesota Law School, wrote: "the Court's decision ... treated juveniles as the functional equals of adults during interrogation. Over the past quarter-century, developmental psychological research consistently has emphasized adolescents' inability to understand or exercise Miranda rights".[32] Paul Holland, professor at Seattle University School of Law, wrote that "the assumptions Justice Kennedy made in Alvarado are inapplicable to the schoolhouse context ... considering the age of a student-suspect questioned at school, would not present a significant risk of compromising the clarity the Court has sought to provide law enforcement. Officers questioning students at school are well aware of the students' status as minors".[33]

Yarborough v. Alvarado has been cited in subsequent Supreme Court decisions as precedent for providing state courts leeway in reaching case by case determinations for general rules.[34][35][36]

Though the Court rejected the argument that its previous holdings supported using age in the custody analysis,[23] the Court did not rule against the use of age.[22][37][38] In 2011 the Court clarified in J.D.B. v. North Carolina, ruling that a child's age is relevant to custody analysis.[25] J.D.B. was a 13-year-old student who was interrogated at school by an investigator, a uniformed police officer, and school officials regarding a series of robberies. J.D.B. confessed to committing the robberies. He was not given a Miranda warning during the interrogation. Motions to suppress J.D.B.'s statements at trial were denied on the ground that J.D.B. was not in custody. Age was not used as a factor in the custody determination. The Supreme Court found that J.D.B.'s age should have been considered in the custody analysis and instructed the lower court to make a new finding on custody while taking age into account.