State v. Y.A., 2025 Del. Fam. Ct. LEXIS 36 (Del. Fam. Ct. 2025)
The Delaware Family Court granted a youth’s suppression motion, finding that age and race must be considered when determining whether a seizure has occurred under the Fourth Amendment. The court states in relevant part:
“Children are not adults. In J.D.B. v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court decided that children should not be treated like adults for the purposes of determining when they are in “custody” and entitled to Miranda warnings. “[A] reasonable child subjected to police questioning will sometimes feel pressured to submit when a reasonable adult would feel free to go.” Age is personal, but it is not truly subjective. Age is often “objectively apparent to any reasonable officer.” Additionally, “the effects of youth on cognition are not entirely individualistic.” It generates “conclusions about behavior and perception” that are “widely and easily understood” as a matter of common sense. Therefore, “so long as the child‘s age was known to the officer . . . or would have been objectively apparent to a reasonable officer, its inclusion in the custody analysis is consistent with the objective nature of that test.”
No Delaware Court has previously taken the step of directly extending J.D.B. to the Fourth Amendment context, but this Court joins other courts and scholarly authorities in concluding that the reasonable-child test in J.D.B. warrants such an extension here. Although “not identical” and designed to protect different rights, the seizure and custody inquiries are tightly linked in theory and virtually indistinguishable in practice.
. . . .
Considering a child‘s age is necessary to preserve the full extent of his right to be free of unjustified police intrusion, and it can be done without sacrificing the objective virtues of the traditional seizure analysis. Our Supreme Court has already cited J.D.B. for the proposition that a child‘s age is relevant to the reasonableness of a seizure. It is surely no great leap to also consider age in deciding the antecedent question of whether a seizure has occurred at all.
. . . .
Additionally, in evaluating Y——‘s choice to flee, the Court cannot blind itself to the ever-present facts of his race and young age.”
