The student's lawyer contended that the confession should be thrown out based on the fact that prior court rulings have called for Miranda warnings before the police start questioning the party in custody. However, the North Carolina Supreme Court claimed that the student was never in custody and therefore, the confession would not be thrown out. The court maintained that since the student was not restrained or blocked from exiting the room, he was not in custody and could have left at any time. The definition of being in custody refers to a state when a reasonable person thinks that he does not have the freedom to stop questioning and leave. The North Carolina Supreme Court also stated that the student's age could not be taken into account when considering whether the student understood that he had the right to leave or not.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg questioned this argument stating, ''Just as a matter of common sense, how can you say we're going to have the same test for this eight year old as we would for a 30-year old?'' Justice Stephen Breyer seemed to echo Ginsberg's thoughts when he noted that judges are expected to take into account whether a person speaks English or whether a person has a physical handicap that might prevent them from understanding if they are in custody or not. Breyer went on to suggest that a 12-year cannot be expected to pick up on the same things that a 20-year old would pick up on, thus insinuating that age should be considered in the decision.
The Supreme Court's conservative judges took a different stance. Justice Antonin Scalia said,'' If age should be one of the factors deciding whether the individual regarded himself as in custody or not, why shouldn't mental deficiency be so as well?'' Chief Justice John Roberts pointed out that Miranda serves to give police officers precise and unbiased guidelines to follow and guessing someone's age in the process defeats that.
