DISTINGUISHED BRIEF PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN,

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1 DISTINGUISHED BRIEF The Distinguished Brief Award is given in recognition of the most scholarly briefs filed before the Michigan Supreme Court, as determined by a panel of eminent jurists. Three briefs are chosen each year and printed in the Thomas M. Cooley Law Review. INTRODUCTION PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF MICHIGAN, v. KADEEM DENNIS WHITE, Plaintiff-Appellee, Defendant-Appellant. The Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan and the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth collaborated on an amicus curiae brief in support of rehearing in People v. White. This case involved an interrogating police officer s statements appealing to the conscience of a seventeen-year-old suspect who had invoked his right to silence under Miranda. The Michigan Supreme Court held that the officer s comments did not amount to the functional equivalent of express questioning under Rhode Island v. Innis, thus a subsequent confession was admissible. This brief argues in favor of greater protections for juveniles in the custodial-interrogation setting, highlighting the particular vulnerabilities of youth and the troubling frequency of juvenile false confessions. BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENT BRADLEY HALL is an attorney at the Federal Defender Office in Detroit, where he represents criminal defendants and habeas corpus petitioners in the Eastern District of Michigan and the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He is the principal author of the 2012 Defender Habeas Book and has published articles in several law journals. He graduated from Michigan State University and

2 370 THOMAS M. COOLEY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 30:3 Northwestern University School of Law, where he was recently awarded the 2013 Young Alumni Public Service Award. He was a law clerk for the Hon. Nancy G. Edmunds in the Eastern District of Michigan. Before law school, he worked as a counselor with incarcerated juvenile delinquents and sex offenders. JOHN R. MINOCK received his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School in 1974, lived in Ann Arbor for more than 40 years, and has practiced law as a criminal defense attorney for 36 years. John is the past president of the Criminal Defense Attorneys Association of Michigan and the 2006 Right to Counsel Award winner. STEVEN A. DRIZIN is the Assistant Dean of Northwestern University School of Law s Bluhm Legal Clinic, a Clinical Professor of Law, and the former Legal Director of the Clinic s renowned Center on Wrongful Convictions ( ). At the Center, his research interests involve the study of false confessions and his policy work focuses on supporting efforts around the country to require law-enforcement agencies to electronically record custodial interrogations. In 2008, he co-founded the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth where he and his colleagues represent clients who were juveniles when arrested and use these cases to advocate for reforms to prevent wrongful convictions of youth. Before working on wrongful convictions, Drizin was the Supervising Attorney at the Clinic s Children and Family Justice Center where he built a reputation as a national expert on juvenile-justice issues. He was a leader in the successful effort to outlaw the juvenile death penalty and co-wrote an amicus brief in Roper v. Simmons, the Supreme Court of the United States s decision holding that capital punishment could no longer be imposed on offenders who were under the age of 18 at the time they committed their crimes. In 2005, Drizin received the American Bar Association s Livingston Hall Award for outstanding dedication and advocacy in the juvenile-justice field. Drizin s scholarship in the area of interrogations and confessions has been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States and numerous federal and state appellate courts. LAURA NIRIDER is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and Project Co-Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago. Nirider

3 2013] DISTINGUISHED BRIEF 371 represents individuals who were wrongfully convicted of crimes when they were children or teenagers. In connection with that work, she has represented several defendants in high-profile cases involving juvenile false confessions, including members of the West Memphis Three and Dixmoor Five. Nirider has also published several articles and op-eds on juvenile interrogations and post-conviction relief and, in partnership with the International Association of Chiefs of Police, has co-authored one of the only existing juvenile-interrogation protocols. Nirider also regularly presents on juvenile interrogations at defender and law-enforcement training conferences around the country and has been featured in film and television programs as an expert on juvenile interrogations. Recently, she co-authored an amicus curiae brief on juvenile interrogations that was cited by the Supreme Court of the United States in J.D.B. v. North Carolina (2011) for the proposition that the risk of false confession is "all the more troubling... and all the more acute... when the subject of custodial interrogation is a juvenile."

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