photo by: Mackenzie Clark

The Lawrence Police Department's Investigations and Training Center, 4820 Bob Billings Parkway, is pictured on Feb. 11, 2020.

Updated at 10:17 a.m. Monday, April 20:

Lawrence police officers’ 2017 interrogation of a teen was “almost like a therapy session” rather than a criminal investigation as they encouraged the boy to let out everything he’d been “holding inside,” a judge wrote in her ruling to toss out the boy’s self-incriminating statements.

The high school student was not told that he was suspected of rape, but juvenile investigators read him his Miranda warning — “It’s like, you know, a formality,” one of the officers said — and he agreed to speak with them. His only prior contact with law enforcement had been a mentor-like relationship with a school resource officer.

The interrogation at LPD’s Investigations and Training Center went on for nearly four hours before one of the officers told the boy she was going to submit a report to prosecutors and suggested that “we do kinda need to tell your mom what’s going on,” according to court documents. The teen was later charged with 14 felonies, including eight counts of rape, and two misdemeanors.

The Kansas Court of Appeals, in an opinion published April 10, affirmed the Jan. 29, 2019, ruling by since-retired Douglas County District Court Judge Paula Martin that the boy’s statements to police were not made “of a free and independent will” and therefore could not be used against him.

The case is still pending, but this ruling may raise a question for parents and guardians: What do teens need to know about their rights should they ever become suspects of crimes?

‘We’re kind of de facto counselors today’

At the time of the interrogation, Lawrence police officers Lindsay Bishop and Joshua Leitner were assigned as juvenile investigators. They introduced themselves to the teen as Lindsay and Josh, and Bishop explained that their positions were similar to the SRO, except that “instead of like a mentory role,” they talk with kids when they are victims of a crime.

Martin’s ruling characterized that statement as “total lack of candor,” since the teen was not aware that he was a suspect, nor that the officers were investigating a crime.

“They help kids. They want to understand him,” Martin wrote. “… They lead him to believe that they are there to make things better, to understand and to help him.”

As both courts’ rulings noted, the officers reassured the teen as he told his story, telling him that they didn’t think he was “a bad person.” They said every kid his age has probably made some bad choices, and that he needed to “come to terms with what really happened” in order to grow and move on.

“So, part of what we’re doing here is, is, maybe we’re kind of de facto counselors today,” Leitner told the teen, according to the records. “… We’re … trying to just work through what happened.”

At one point after the teen made some inculpatory statements that pertained to the officers’ investigation, Bishop thanked him for “sharing that with us and talking about this, and we’ll figure it out together, OK?”

The appeals court’s opinion states that although the officers may have had good intentions, some statements they made — such as how the teen could leave all of what he’d been “holding inside” there, and move forward with a “super bright future” — are “at best misleading.”

After close to four hours, Bishop told the teen that she “want[ed] to be on front street” and that she was going to submit a report to the district attorney’s office.

“Expressing concern, (the teen) asked the officers what the ‘worst case scenario’ might be and he was told that he could face prosecution as an adult as well as imprisonment for the crime of rape,” according to the opinion.

Prosecutors had argued in an appeal of Martin’s decision that the officers’ “cordial tone” did not render the teen’s waiver of his Miranda rights involuntary, and that the officers “did not coerce or trick him into confessing.” But the appeals court sided with Martin’s opinion that given the totality of the circumstances, the teen’s statements “are not voluntary, nor are they free from coercion or suggestion.”

“As the defendant correctly states in his motion, if government agents extract statements from a person through unduly coercive physical or psychological pressure – rendering the statements involuntary and the product of a will overborne – the government cannot, then, use those statements as evidence against that person in a criminal prosecution,” Martin wrote.

Defense attorney Branden Smith, who filed the successful motion to have the teen’s statements suppressed, declined to comment on the pending case.

What minors need to know

Though she did not comment on this case specifically, Lauren Bonds, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, told the Journal-World via email that the U.S. Supreme Court has found that young people are more susceptible to interrogation tactics.

Bonds and the court of appeals opinion pointed to the same 2011 U.S. Supreme Court ruling on one juvenile’s statements to police.

In J.D.B. v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court found that even for adults, “the physical and psychological isolation” of interrogations in police custody can “undermine the individual’s will to resist and … compel him to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.” It states that the risk is “all the more troubling” when the suspect is a juvenile.

“It is beyond dispute that children will often feel bound to submit to police questioning when an adult in the same circumstances would feel free to leave,” the ruling notes.

photo by: Contributed Photo

Lauren Bonds

Though she said she would not make a generalization about most teens when asked whether she believes teens have the knowledge and capacity to knowingly waive their Miranda rights, Bonds said that “young people are less likely to understand the consequences of their actions generally, and waiving one’s Miranda rights is no different.”

The term “Miranda rights,” based on the 1966 Supreme Court ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, refers to the constitutional right of anyone detained by police to have an attorney present during questioning, to have an attorney appointed to represent them if they cannot afford one and to “remain silent” — or not incriminate oneself by providing information that could later be used to secure a conviction in court.

Kansas law does not allow minors older than 14 to have a parent present during interrogation by law enforcement, but minors have the same rights to an attorney as any citizen, Bonds said. Those younger than 14 do have a right to have a parent present, she said.

The same rule applies when a school resource officer is questioning a student, she said. However, it does not apply to questioning by school administrators, Bonds said.

“While many school districts have adopted internal policies requiring a parent be notified before a school administrator questions a student about a potential criminal matter, there is no legal right to have a parent or attorney present during administrator questioning,” Bonds said.

According to Lawrence school district policies, principals should notify law enforcement if there is reason to believe a crime has been committed. In that case, under state law the student would be able to invoke their Miranda rights.

At the time of the 2017 interrogation, the manual said that when officers conduct an investigation and/or question a student, the principal “shall make a reasonable attempt” to contact a parent prior to questioning, unless there is potential for imminent harm or if “the investigation would be impeded.” An update to the policy, effective since Nov. 25, 2019, removes making a “reasonable attempt” from the language.

The policy also says that law enforcement officers will not be allowed to conduct investigations during school hours except in emergency situations.

In the teenage defendant’s case, the officers had contacted the SRO to let him know they were coming to pick the teen up after school, according to the case file. They took the teen to an interview room at the ITC in a “super stealth” unmarked police car, as Bishop described it, according to court records. They did not give him an opportunity to contact a parent or guardian.

District policy at the time said that if a student is taken into custody by an SRO or “any other law enforcement persons,” unless the student is a suspected victim of abuse or neglect, school administrators “shall make a good-faith effort to contact parents.” It is not clear from the courts’ rulings whether that happened in this case, nor is it clear from the district’s policy manual whether that applies to students being picked up from school property outside of school hours.

The November 2019 update to that part of the policy removed making a “good-faith effort” to contact parents to rather state that the principal shall contact a parent or guardian.

Asked what parents and guardians should communicate to their kids, Bonds said that even though minors do not always have a right to have an attorney present, they should always ask to call their parents, and if they are in law enforcement custody, they should always exercise their right to remain silent.

Case status

As nonessential court operations are on hold amid the coronavirus pandemic, the immediate future of this case, like most others, is unclear.

Cheryl Wright Kunard, assistant to Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson, said Thursday that Branson and his staff were still reviewing the court’s opinion.

“When the review is complete a decision will be made if the office will pursue a petition for review,” she said.

Officers Bishop and Leitner are still employed with the Lawrence Police Department, and they had been rotated to different assignments prior to the decision by the Court of Appeals, according to LPD spokesman Patrick Compton.

“This is not unusual as we typically rotate special assignments every three years,” he said via email Thursday. “The case and its subsequent decision had no bearing on their new roles.”

Otherwise, Compton said the department was not able to comment on the case while it was still active.

Leitner was hired in 2007, and Bishop was hired in 2013, according to salary data from the City of Lawrence. Bishop served as an investigator for the Kansas Department for Children and Families prior to her police career, the Journal-World has previously reported.

— Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include language changed in Lawrence school board policies.