State v. Powell

Paris Powell, then 15, was interviewed three times by a Henry County detective after she was found standing near the body of Larry Bryant, who had been shot. Her mother was present throughout. After the third interview, once the detective suspected Powell was involved in setting up a robbery that led to Bryant's death, she was indicted. She asked the trial court to suppress her statements, arguing they were not freely and voluntarily given. The trial court found her first two interviews and the start of the third were voluntary, but ruled that the last portion of the third interview and her related written statement were not, largely because the detective wrongly suggested only her mother could invoke her right to a lawyer. The State appealed that partial suppression, arguing the trial court misapplied the law. The Supreme Court of Georgia disagreed and affirmed, holding the trial court's factual findings were supported by the record and its application of the Riley factors was not clearly erroneous. One Justice dissented, arguing the trial court used the wrong legal framework entirely.

The Supreme Court of Georgia held that the trial court did not clearly err in finding, under the Riley factors used to assess a juvenile's statement, that the girl's statements after the first 9 minutes and 30 seconds of her third interview were not knowingly and voluntarily made, largely because the detective incorrectly suggested that only her mother could invoke her right to counsel.

The ruling affects how Georgia police must handle juvenile witnesses who become suspects mid-interview, especially regarding a parent's role in invoking the right to counsel. It signals that misleading a parent about who can assert a child's right to a lawyer can make later statements inadmissible, shaping how prosecutors and detectives across the state conduct interviews with minors.

Affirmed

1. The court explained that Riley v. State sets out nine factors Georgia courts use to judge whether a juvenile's statement to police was voluntary, including the juvenile's age, education, understanding of her rights, and whether she was held incommunicado or could consult family or a lawyer.
2. The court noted that Riley factors apply not only to custodial interrogations but also to general due-process voluntariness questions for juveniles, based on prior Georgia Supreme Court decisions applying Riley outside the custody context.
3. Reviewing the record, the court found support for the trial court's conclusion that the detective incorrectly told the girl's mother that only she, not the girl herself, could invoke the girl's constitutional right to a lawyer, which weighed against voluntariness.
4. Applying a deferential standard that accepts a trial judge's factual findings unless clearly erroneous while independently applying the law to those facts, the court walked through each of the nine Riley factors and found the record supported the trial court's findings even though some factors favored admitting the statements.
5. Because the totality of the circumstances, including the misleading advice about who could invoke the right to counsel and the emotional pressure from the mother's participation, supported the trial court's conclusion, the court held there was no clear error in suppressing the later statements.

• motion to suppress
• juvenile interrogation
• Miranda rights
• right to counsel
• felony murder