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A bill that would keep minors out of police interrogation rooms until they've spoken with an attorney is one step closer to becoming law in New York after passing in the state Assembly, in what could be a chance to transform how juvenile crimes are investigated.

If signed into law, A.B. 2620, called the #Right2RemainSilent Act, would make New York one of just a handful of states to mandate that children consult a lawyer before waiving their Miranda rights. Others include California, Illinois, Maryland and Washington, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The act is sponsored on the Assembly side by Assemblyman Andrew Hevesi, who reintroduced it after an earlier version died during the 2023–2024 legislative session. His office did not respond to 极速赛车's request for comment.

It has long been common for juveniles to talk to police without a lawyer — one 2014 analysis found that they waive their Miranda rights about 90% of the time. Studies have found that during police interrogations, minors are two to three times more likely than adults to give a false confession, according to a 2016 American Bar Association report.

It's something professor Laura Cohen, director of the Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic and the New Jersey Innocence Project at Rutgers University, has seen for herself when representing clients who confessed to crimes they didn't commit as teenagers.

"In every one of the cases in which a client who falsely confessed has been exonerated, the police essentially posed a false dichotomy," Cohen, who has done postconviction work in both New York and New Jersey, told 极速赛车. "This is a standard police interrogation tactic. The police will tell anyone who's undergoing interrogation — and this is particularly powerful with children — that innocence is not a possibility."

"The child is essentially given two choices," she said. "They can admit to committing the crime with some justification or excuse, often in response to an implicit and false promise by the officer that they will be treated more leniently by the prosecution and the court. If they refuse to do so, the only other possibility is that they committed the crime for the worst possible reasons and will be treated more harshly."

New York has a few state-level models to draw from as it weighs barring adolescents from waiving their Miranda rights without talking to a lawyer. One of them, California, was the subject of an implementation study published by the University of Chicago in late 2023 about two state laws California passed to this effect in 2017 and 2020 — the first applied to defendants under 16, while the second extended the protections to all minors.

Researchers conducted interviews with publicly appointed defense attorney offices across 13 counties. They learned that California implemented the reforms by staffing phone lines with attorneys whom law enforcement could contact before questioning a minor.

The phone calls between an attorney and the minor facing questioning usually lasted approximately 10 to 20 minutes. Defense attorneys said talking in person is always the preferred option, but constraints on time and resources can make doing so unrealistic.

"I think it's better to be in person with them than on the phone because I don't know if the officer is listening," said an attorney quoted anonymously in the report. "I assume he is when I'm on the phone with the kid. So, I just don't think it's very confidential when it's over the phone."

Defense attorneys said they'd been getting fewer calls since the legislation went into effect because police often decide it's not worth trying to question a minor, as they almost always invoke their right to remain silent after they get a lawyer on the phone. Some argued that officers have conducted more thorough investigations, now that they are less likely to get statements from the minors.

However, even if the laws have led to more juveniles asserting their Miranda rights, they still lack an actual enforcement mechanism. According to the report, California courts have ruled that a juvenile defendant's statements are admissible even if police questioned them without consulting an attorney.

"While respondents shared that law enforcement does not appear to be intentionally subverting the law, the lack of accountability and enforcement is still a concern," the report said.

Also, the law applies only to interrogations with a minor who has been detained or arrested. This means it does not extend to school settings, where many interrogations occur.

The #Right2RemainSilent Act also applies only to custodial interrogations. It is currently in committee in the New York Senate after passing the Assembly in May. The version on the Senate side, S.B. 878, is sponsored by Sen. Jamaal T. Bailey.

When asked if New York Gov. Kathy Hochul would sign the legislation if it were to come to her desk in its current form, a spokesperson for the office told 极速赛车 that she would "review all legislation that passes both houses of the state Legislature."

The Legal Aid Society commended the Assembly for passing the act in a May statement.

"It's been more than 30 years since the Exonerated Five were interrogated as youth and coerced into false confessions in New York City," the organization said, referencing the notorious case of five since-exonerated Black and Hispanic New Yorkers who were wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting a jogger in Central Park in 1989. "In the decades since, New York state has failed to curb deceptive interrogation tactics used by the police. Instead, young people, who lack the capacity to fully understand Miranda warnings and appreciate the long term consequences of their decisions, continue to be subjected to coercive interrogations by law enforcement."

Police famously secured false confessions from four of the then-teenagers after lying about both the presence of fingerprint evidence and the information offered by other suspects, according to the Innocence Project, which has urged New York to adopt legislation ending the use of deceptive interrogation tactics.

No state appears to have done so across the board yet, but Delaware, Illinois, Oregon and Utah all ban law enforcement from using deceptive interrogation tactics when questioning a minor, according to the NCSL. The latest version of a New York bill to govern the admissibility of statements defendants make due to false information is currently in committee in the Senate and Assembly after previous attempts to pass it during the 2019-2020, 2021-2022 and 2023-2024 legislative sessions fell short.

More states could follow suit with their own reforms to juvenile justice investigations. A bill currently in the South Carolina Senate would require children 15 and younger to consult with counsel "before any request for the child to waive his Miranda rights." Another, in Vermont, would ban the use of deception during custodial interrogations of juveniles and require contact with a parent, guardian or legal custodian before such interrogations. The legislation was referred to the state's House Judiciary Committee earlier this year.

--Additional reporting by Nadia Dreid. Editing by Robert Rudinger.