The development of a theory-based, Miranda Rights educational curriculum: Are there cognitive developmental limitations to legal learning?

Despite the extension of the Miranda warnings to juvenile suspects following the Supreme Court decision in In re Gault (1967), research suggests that adolescents may fail to benefit from their legal rights. Specifically, younger adolescents (i.e., under the age of 15) tend to: (a) waive the rights to silence and legal counsel at greater rates than adults (Grisso & Pomicter, 1977); (b) lack basic comprehension of the Miranda rights (e.g., Grisso, 1981); (c) misperceive the significance and function of the Miranda rights (e.g., Grisso, 1981); and (d) lack the developmental capacities to make decisions about legal rights (Grisso et al., 2003). The purpose of the proposed study was to design, implement, and evaluate a theory-based, Miranda rights educational curriculum for youth, ages 10 through 16. Integrating research from the fields of developmental, educational, and forensic psychology, we argued that the development of legal reasoning involves both quantitative changes in the individual’s repertoire of legal facts and qualitative changes in how the individual values rights. We hypothesized that a rights-based education program, based on the principles of Posner, Stike, Hewson, and Gertzog’s (1982) theory of conceptual change, could facilitate advancements in adolescents’ capacities to reason about legal rights. Furthermore, we hypothesized that changes in youths’ comprehension of and capacity to reason about the Miranda warnings would improve differentially across age groups. We implemented the curriculum for students from grades 5 through 10 at a college preparatory school in the Mid-Atlantic region. We assessed 64 students’ comprehension and appreciation of the Miranda rights and legal decision-making skills prior to and following the curriculum. Results indicated that the curriculum improved participants’ comprehension and appreciation of Miranda rights. However, participants’ rights-relevant, judgment-based abilities such as the ability to identify long range future consequences to waiver/assertion decisions, did not improve. Robust patterns for age emerged; although 10 to 12 year olds displayed the greatest improvements in Miranda comprehension and appreciation, they continued to score below 13 and 14 year olds and 15 and 16 year olds on most measures. Results are discussed in relation to conceptual change theory and previous research.Ph.D., Clinical Psychology -- Drexel University, 200