Baltimore Police violating child interrogation law as prosecutors seek to repeal protections

BALTIMORE — In early July, a Baltimore Police officer’s body-worn camera footage shows him arresting a 16-year-old boy next to a car.

Within seconds of handcuffing the teen, the officer reads him his rights off a script on the officer’s phone. A voice over the officer’s radio instructs him to “just try to find out,” and the officer asks the teen where he got the car, according to footage shown to The Baltimore Sun on the condition a reporter could describe the video but not publish it.

While the teen opted not to say anything, the question itself violated a new Maryland law that requires police to have an attorney explain an underage defendant’s Miranda rights to them before the youth can decide whether to answer an officer’s questions or remain silent.

Known as the Child Interrogation Protection Act, the law aims to protect kids who don’t understand their rights and are susceptible to pressure from authorities, which can lead to false confessions and coerced statements. More than a third of exonerations nationwide for crimes allegedly committed by youth under 18 involved a false confession, compared to about 11% of cases involving adults, according to the Innocence Project, a nonprofit aimed at getting justice for the wrongfully convicted.

The violation caught on body camera is not an isolated incident.

There were at least 10 other violations in the city from July alone, according to Jenny Egan, the juvenile division chief for the Baltimore branch of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender. Egan said she also has documented evidence of violations in Anne Arundel, Allegany, Montgomery and Garrett counties, though she is prohibited from sharing the corresponding court records under Maryland law.

What’s more, although Baltimore Police arrested at least 77 youth in July, including at least one teen in connection to the Brooklyn Homes mass shooting, the public defender’s office received only one call in July from the city to its 24/7 Youth Access to Counsel hotline, which connects public defenders to underage defendants in order to advise them of their Miranda rights.

“It was the Maryland State Police calling about a child they brought in on a Wicomico warrant,” Egan said. “We got calls from Charles County, [Prince George’s County], Montgomery County, Baltimore County, Carroll County, Ocean City, and others — but none from BPD.”

For comparison, a similar hotline in Washington state was utilized more than 3,300 times in its first 18 months of existence.

While it is possible those 77 youth arrested in Baltimore consulted with private counsel retained by their families, Baltimore Deputy District Public Defender Alycia Capozello said it is highly unlikely, given that her office represents upwards of 95% of juvenile defendants in the city.

“We’re able to say with extreme confidence that yes, this is happening,” Capozello said of the violations.

The underage teen arrested in connection to the Brooklyn Homes shooting does have private counsel but was not able to consult with his attorney before officers interrogated him.

“They had already begun an interrogation with him before I got down to police headquarters,” said Michael S. Clinkscale, the teen’s attorney.

Baltimore Police did not respond to questions for this article.

It’s estimated that about 90% of youth defendants waive their Miranda rights, likely because they do not understand them, according to the ACLU of Maryland.

Passed last year by the Maryland General Assembly, the Child Interrogation Protection Act went into effect Oct. 1 and also ensures that parents and guardians will be notified if their child is taken into custody. And it establishes a legal presumption that a statement made by a child during a custodial interrogation is inadmissible if a law enforcement officer willfully failed to comply with the law, although prosecutors could argue for its inclusion in court.

David Jaros, a law professor who heads the University of Baltimore School of Law’s Center for Criminal Justice Reform, called a person’s right against self-incrimination and right to an attorney a “bedrock foundational principle” of both the criminal justice system and our Constitutional rights.

“The reality is that these kinds of constitutional protections provide a convenient scapegoat for law enforcement to point at when facing criticism about crime,” Jaros said. “But there’s very little evidence that efforts to protect constitutional rights are inhibiting efforts to keep the public safe.”

The violations are coming at a time when Democratic Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates, among other elected prosecutors, is railing against the Child Interrogation Protection Act, claiming that the law is hampering investigations during what he called an increase in youth crime. While the number of people arrested under age 18 in Baltimore this year has increased compared to the corresponding period last year, the number is about half of pre-pandemic totals, according to a review of Baltimore Police data.

“This is what I don’t get: Even if the parent says yes you can talk to their child, a lawyer, the public defender, is saying you can’t talk to my client,” Bates said during an appearance on WBAL Radio’s “C4 and Bryan Nehman Show” in early August, making reference to the investigation into the Brooklyn Homes shooting.

“Of course they’re not saying you can talk to anyone,” Bates added of the public defender’s office. “They’re shutting it down. Matter of fact, I received an email from a public defender in Baltimore City reminding me what the law was, almost waving it in my face, ‘Hey you can’t do this.’ That’s the mentality now given to the public defenders here in Baltimore City.”

The Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office shared with The Sun the email Bates referenced, in which Capozello wrote to him July 7 that she wanted to “highlight that [the public defender’s office] is here to help facilitate adherence to the Child Interrogation Protection Act.”

Capozello said the attacks on the new law are deflections from the police department’s own flawed investigations.

“We have the state’s attorney and other city officials repeatedly speaking out against a law that’s meant to protect the constitutional rights of children at a time when the city’s in the midst of implementing a consent decree that it’s in because of a pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing,” Capozello said.

State Sen. Jill Carter, a Baltimore City Democrat who sponsored the law, called Bates’ and other state’s attorneys’ complaints that police cannot interview kids who were witnesses to a crime “the dumbest and most ridiculous thing” she’s ever heard in her life.

“What we’re dealing with now is misinformation on the part of law enforcement and state’s attorneys who are unhappy with the current state of the law,” Carter said in an interview with The Sun. “They’re seeking to win public support by being dishonest about the law, which requires them in many cases to do more work. It requires them to honor the rights of the children. And that’s something they’re clearly resistant to.”

Told about the apparent violations by Baltimore Police, Carter said it wasn’t surprising to her as the department “does not have a history of abiding by the law.”

In a statement to The Sun, a spokesman for Bates called the legislature’s decision to require that underage defendants consult with an attorney before being interviewed “misguided and harmful.”

State’s attorney spokesman James Bentley added that because any questioning of underage defendants has to be recorded, their rights already are safeguarded.

“There can be no legitimate contention that placing restrictions on law enforcement’s ability to interview those juveniles involved in violence will promote public safety or accountability,” Bentley wrote in an email. “Instead, the law acts as a barrier to solving the cases, which leads to further violence and retaliation throughout the community.”

The attacks on the Child Interrogation Protection Act are not contained to mainstream or conservative Democrats, either. Despite joining former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby in support of the law during the 2022 legislative session, Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Aisha Braveboy also has cried foul.

“The juvenile interrogation law that was passed by the Maryland legislature I think had good intentions,” Braveboy said in an interview with WUSA9, the Washington CBS affiliate, earlier this year. “But the results have been that young people are less willing to provide critical information to solve crimes that occur here, not only in Prince George’s County but throughout Maryland ... That law has really been a problem for us.”

Former Republican Gov. Larry Hogan vetoed the law last year, but the Democratic supermajority in 2022 overrode him.

Jaros, the law professor, said these arguments from prosecutors mirror the protestations made more than half a century ago when the U.S. Supreme Court determined police have to inform a person of their right to remain silent and right to an attorney before questioning.

“The thing that’s often missed in this conversation is that there’s overwhelming evidence that when people are properly informed of their rights, they still talk to law enforcement,” Jaros said. “We’ve had Miranda on the books for over half a century now, and yet despite all of the claims that the world would end for law enforcement, people are still confessing.”

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