What that mean?
The grammar is poor; the English is either broken or Ebonics, depending on your perspective. The 13-year-old girl asked that question about the definition of what you or I might consider a pretty simple word.
Justified.
For defense attorney Jerry Tarud, the question was enough to convince him of one thing: If the girl didn't know the meaning of the word justified, how could she understand her Miranda rights?
Tarud is a defense attorney for the girl. She was 13 on Dec. 4, the day Sarah Kreager was viciously attacked while riding a Maryland Transit Administration bus. Kreager was left with broken bones in her face. The girl and eight others were charged with assaulting Kreager and two others.
Charges against three of the juveniles were dropped. Three girls and three boys - all students at Robert Poole Middle School - were to have their juvenile hearings Jan. 31. But the hearings hit a snag, and this particular snag has a name: Ernesto Miranda.
In 1963, Miranda was charged with rape and kidnapping in Arizona. He signed a confession and was subsequently convicted, but the detectives who questioned him never told Miranda that he had the right to talk to a lawyer before he answered any questions or signed the confession. Police of that era didn't feel such things were their responsibility. "We're cops, not civics teachers," they probably thought.
The Supreme Court of Chief Justice Earl Warren didn't see it that way. In a 5-4 decision handed down in 1966, the Court ruled that police had to advise all suspects of their right to remain silent and to have an attorney present during questioning.
Miranda's conviction was overturned, but the dolt had told his common-law wife that he'd committed the rape. She testified against him at his second trial. Miranda was convicted again in 1967 and paroled in 1972. He was killed in a bar fight four years later.
Thus did one of the greatest losers the country has ever known have perhaps the greatest impact on our system of justice. Every criminal suspect since 1966, including the guy who killed Miranda, is supposed to be "Mirandized."
The juveniles accused of attacking Kreager, her boyfriend, Troy Ennis, and an MTA bus driver have that right, too. Tarud and the five lawyers defending the other juveniles contend their clients weren't properly Mirandized while they were in the custody of MTA Police. When the hearing started Jan. 31, each of the lawyers made a motion to have any statements their clients made to MTA Police detectives suppressed.
For the past week, in the courtroom of Judge David W. Young on the third floor of the Juvenile Justice Center, Tarud and five other defense attorneys have been grilling officers and detectives of the MTA Police force like steaks at a Fourth of July cookout. The lawyers wanted to know if their clients were handcuffed, and for how long. They wanted to know if they were provided with food or drink. The intent was to prove that the atmosphere in which the juveniles were detained was coercive, and certainly not one in which a juvenile could voluntarily waive his or her Miranda rights.
But Tarud and Barbara Greene, who represents another one of the girls, may have gotten to the heart of the matter: If these girls didn't understand simple words any middle-schooler should know, how would they understand Miranda rights?
Greene's client and Tarud's client were questioned by Detective Anjanette McBride of the MTA Police. As McBride talked to Tarud's client, she asked the girl if she thought the fight on the bus was justified. That's when the girl responded with the question on which this entire case might well hinge:
"What that mean?"
Tarud's client is 13; she's in middle school.
And she doesn't know what justified means.
When McBride read each Miranda right to Greene's client, the detective told the girl to put her initials after each statement to indicate she understood.
The girl didn't know what the word initial meant. McBride had to tell her. The girl was baffled again when McBride read the statement "I agree to answer questions, and I do not want an attorney at this time." McBride asked the girl, explicitly, if she wanted to talk to her. It was then that the girl said yes.
Greene was quick to challenge McBride: Why did she explain only the first part of the statement "I agree to answer questions, and I do not want an attorney at this time"? McBride answered that she assumed the girl understood the second portion.
But when students don't know words like justified and initial, it's safe to assume they neither know about - nor understand - Miranda either.
The hearing continues.
gregory.kane@baltsun.com