Everyone knows that going through puberty is associated with a multitude of changes: physical, mental, hormonal, etc. Fewer people know that when and how fast one goes through puberty can also be associated with changes to one’s legal rights. The Supreme Court of the United States held, in the landmark case ofJ.D.B. v. North Carolina, that there were many “commonsense conclusions” that could be drawn from how a child’s age would affect their interactions with law enforcement. In that case, the Court was deciding whether age should affect whether a child was considered “in custody” of the police, granting them the legal rights associated with custodial interrogation (also known as Miranda rights). Surprisingly, however, despite the majority opinion discussing the objective nature of age, and “commonsense conclusions” derived therefrom, the Court did not fully incorporate age into the custody analysis. The Court held that the age only matters in a legal sense either if the officer(s) interacting with that per-son knows that the person is a child or if the age of the child would be objectively apparent to a reasonable officer. In other words, unless the officer(s) knows that a suspect is a child, the influence of this objective fact about a person depends solely on if that person looks like a child to a “reasonable officer.” Although some people find this shortcoming harmless, the Court has inadvertently opened the door for discrimination, both intentional and unintentional. The vast amount of biological and psychological research on puberty has found that when one starts puberty and how fast one goes through puberty depends on multiple factors, including socioeconomic status, race, and sex. Further, additional research on how children are perceived by others shows that children of color are perceived as more mature and more responsible for their actions. In this Article, we provide a brief history of custody and custodial interrogation, including the case ofJ.D.B., and we summarize existing puberty research to emphasize the serious-ness of limiting the legal importance of age based on subjective perceptions.

中文翻译：

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法律眼中的成年：米兰达、JDB 和青春期之间的冲突

每个人都知道经历青春期与许多变化有关：身体、心理、荷尔蒙等。很少有人知道，一个人何时以及以多快的速度度过青春期也可能与一个人的合法权利的变化有关。美国最高法院在具有里程碑意义的 J.DB 诉北卡罗来纳州案中裁定，根据儿童年龄如何影响他们与执法部门的互动，可以得出许多“常识性结论”。在该案中，法院正在决定年龄是否应该影响儿童是否被视为被警察“拘留”，授予他们与拘留审讯相关的合法权利（也称为米兰达权利）。然而，令人惊讶的是，尽管大多数人的意见都在讨论年龄的客观性质，以及由此得出的“常识性结论”，法院没有将年龄完全纳入监护分析。法院认为，只有在与该人打交道的警官知道该人是儿童，或者该儿童的年龄对于一个通情达理的警官来说客观上显而易见的情况下，年龄才在法律意义上才重要。换句话说，除非警官知道嫌疑人是儿童，否则这个客观事实对一个人的影响完全取决于那个人在“通情达理的警官”看来是否像个孩子。虽然有些人认为这个缺点无害，但法院却在不经意间为有意无意的歧视敞开了大门。大量关于青春期的生物学和心理学研究发现，一个人何时开始进入青春期以及一个人进入青春期的速度取决于多种因素，包括社会经济地位、种族, 和性别. 此外，关于其他人如何看待儿童的额外研究表明，有色人种儿童被认为更成熟，对自己的行为更负责任。在这篇文章中，我们提供了包括 J.DB 案例在内的拘留和拘留审讯的简要历史，我们总结了现有的青春期研究，以强调基于主观认知限制年龄的法律重要性的严重性。