Pennsylvania Appellate Court Ruling Protects Youth in Court-Ordered Treatment
In an important ruling earlier this month, the Superior Court of Pennsylvania held that the Commonwealth could not use a youth’s statements to therapists in court-ordered placement to prosecute the youth on new charges.
In the Interest of C.O., 2014 PA Super 1, reaffirms that youth who receive treatment as a requirement of their delinquency case dispositions have a constitutional right against self-incrimination regarding their admissions in therapy. This is important as a policy matter, too, since it is in all parties’ interests for youth to be as open as possible with their therapists, and that cannot happen when youth are prosecuted after being candid.
After accepting 17-year-old C.O.’s guilty plea to certain sexual offenses, the juvenile court ordered C.O. to undergo treatment at a residential treatment facility. When C.O. made an admission to his therapist about offending against a previously-undisclosed victim, the facility reported C.O.’s statements to authorities. The district attorney’s office then filed new charges against C.O. The juvenile court ruled that C.O.’s statements to the facility therapist and subsequently to a children & youth investigator were inadmissible at trial, and the Commonwealth appealed.
The Superior Court affirmed the trial court’s suppression order, holding that C.O.’s admissions could not be used as evidence against him because they were a result of custodial interrogation and C.O. did not receive Miranda warnings. The Court found that in order to successfully complete the facility’s treatment program and ultimately be sent home, C.O. was required to discuss previously undisclosed and uncharged sexual misconduct with staff. The court found that this was interrogation and the statements to the therapist could not be admitted into evidence because C.O. neither received Miranda warnings nor waived his rights. That the therapist was not a law enforcement officer did not change the Court’s analysis.
C.O. was represented by Syzane Arifaj, Esq. of the Monroe County Public Defender’s Office and Lourdes Rosado, Esq., of Juvenile Law Center.
Read the full Superior Court opinion here.
Read C.O.’s brief to the Superior Court here.