Mark Tanner
Ethics and Laws
Criminal Justice Tutorial
I chose to report the incident to district attorney. It was very challenging to choose this decision after being so convinced that the suspects were guilty of the crime. However, because my partner interviewed the boys separately didn't videotape it and the parents were never contacted this is a major violation of the law. It was a terrible thing that happened to the victim and then I feel guilty for the family, but because of the inappropriate decisions of my coworker I had no choice but to inform the district attorney.
Any parent could argue under the fourth amendment right against unreasonable search or seizure, probable cause is a necessary prerequisite to interviewing the child without parental consent. "The Supreme Court recently expanded on those rolls, however, when it decided that the police must take a person's age into account when determining whether the circumstances of the case merit a Miranda notification" (Pruett, 2011). Miranda rights for minors are different from the Miranda rights of adults. In the case J.D.B versus North Carolina, police stopped and questioned the 13-year-old seventh grade student when they saw him near the site of two home break ins.
The child was also later question at the school behind to close doors with an officer and two school officials and was never told that he was allowed to leave the room, given a Miranda warning or given the option for parents to be there. After the boy was question for 30 minutes 10 minutes of the crime. After you made to the crime he was told only then that he could leave the room he did not have to answer the questions. Two petitions are filed against the boy charging him with breaking and entering and larceny and then public defender move to suppress statements and evidence arguing that "he had been interrogated in a custodial setting without being afforded Miranda warnings and that his statements were involuntary"(J.D.D vs. North Carolina, 2011).
Children that are held under interrogation and ashen for long amounts of time will feel the need to admit to things that they may have not done. Working with children and teens for very long time I know this for certain. By law what my partner did was wrong, morally and ethically we both know that the suspects were guilty but with the faulty confession it makes it hard to convict them. The law and its enforcers are supposed to be there to protect people not to unjustly accused convicted of doing things that are wrong. Under the Rights Theories, an action is ethical if it respects the rights which all humans have. I believe in this theory more than others because it is what I believe our system runs on.
In this care I followed the Rights Theory because I told the district attorney what my partner did, which I thought was ethical because it respected the rights of the humans that were involved. The rights of the 14-year-old boys were violated and according to the rights theory that is unethical. In this case if my partner would have informed the parents of the prosecution of the minors and done this the correct way, justice could've been served to the victim and to the victim's family.

Resources:
J. D. B., PETITIONER v. NORTH CAROLINA. (2011, June 16). FindLaw | Cases and Codes. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=000&invol=9-11121

Pruett, S. (2011, March 1). Camreta v. Greene (09-1454); Alford v. Greene (09-1478). LII / Legal Information Institute. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/09-1454

Crystal, G. (2014, July 18). Rights If Your Child is Arrested. Rights If Your Child is Arrested. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from http://www.civilrightsmovement.co.uk/rights-if-your-child-arrested.html