Supreme Court Notebook

Court weighs if age should figure into questioning WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court seems ready to force courts to take age into consideration when examining whether a child is in custody and must be given Miranda rights. A 13-year-old boy confessed to a rash of break-ins in Chapel Hill, N.C. This happened after he was interviewed by a police investigator in a closed room at his school. The North Carolina Supreme Court refused to throw out his confession, saying the youth was never actually in custody. It also said courts cannot look at age when examining whether the boy thought he could leave the closed room. Several justices seemed uncomfortable with this idea during oral arguments, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg saying an 8-year-old boy cannot be treated the same as a 38-year-old man. U.S. high court unlikely to grant right to lawyer WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court appears unlikely to rule that delinquent parents must be given a lawyer before judges can jail them for not paying child support. Several justices said Wednesday they were troubled by the case of a South Carolina father who was repeatedly jailed even though he insisted he could not afford payments of $50 a week. But the court sounded reluctant about extending the right to a taxpayer-provided lawyer that exists in criminal cases to civil proceedings where a person faces jail time. Justice Elena Kagan was among those who wondered whether there are procedures short of a court-appointed lawyer that would give a "person in this situation a fair shake at this." Published: Thu, Mar 24, 2011