More on the Oregon Boys

Dennis Prager talks further about the case in Oregon about two middle schoolers who were offered a reprieve on their childish antics that could have had them labeled as sex offenders for life. I had previously noted that some civil lawsuits were possible if the facts as presented in the media were accurate. I would like to take some those facts and discuss the legal implications. Here is a relevant excerpt from Prager's column:

So a teacher's aide sent the gawky seventh-graders to the office, where the vice principal and a police officer stationed at the school soon interrogated them."

A police officer interrogated them?

"After hours of interviews with students," The Oregonian continues, "the day of the February incident, the officer read the boys their Miranda rights and hauled them off in handcuffs to juvenile jail, where they spent the next five days."

Two seventh-graders were read their Miranda rights for butt-swatting?

And hauled off to jail for butt-swatting?

And kept in jail for five days for butt-swatting?

This is worse than a bad joke; it is actually sick.

And it gets worse. The seventh-graders were not permitted contact with their parents for 24 hours, they were brought into court in shackles and jail garb, and they were strip-searched four times.

This little excerpt reads like a Criminal procedure exam in law school, the problem is that if the news reports are even halfway accurate, the rights violations are piling up fast.

These boys have a strong federal civil suit case against the schools, the police, the vice principal individually and the police officer individually. Just on a quick glance, there is at least two, possibley as many as four, violations of 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. First, there is the issue of holding a minor in custody for 24 hours without contact with their parents. Second, holding the boys for five days in jail, when they could have, indeed should have, been released to parental custody. Third, strip searching the boys presumably for drugs and weapons. Fourth and finally, the multiple strip searches--assuming the first one was reasonable, why do the police need to do three more.

Next, counts for as many as four 5th Amendment violations are possible. First, custodial interrogation with the proper reading of Miranda rights. The timing could be questionable and there could be dispute of whether it was "custodial," but I am pretty sure that the boys figured they were not allowed to leave the vice principals office. Second, the quetsioning of a minor without an attorney or parent present--the police office should have known much better. Third, questioning without a proper waiver of Miranda rights. At 13 it is questionable as to whether these boys are legally capable of making an intelligent and knowing waiver of their rights. Fourth and finally, the hours of questioning seems excessive.

I am leaving out the issues related to the prosecutor's office, whose behavior was questionable as well.

The stupidity of the boys is not in question--there were dumb and there is little excuse. I have seen people note that what the boys did was not merely "butt-swatting" but other actions that could reasonably constitute sexual assault. However, no matter how ridiculous the boys' behavior was, it does not rise to the level of the treatment they received at the hands of the state. The kind of damages these boys can ask for are extensive.