Child Interrogation Protection Act serves justice

I read with dismay the commentary published in your Jan. 30 print edition by David Folderauer, immediate past president of the Baltimore County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 4 (“Don’t give a pass to juveniles who commit crimes in Maryland”). I will address just one of the points made.

Everyone taken into custody, including children, has a constitutional right to an attorney. Most children don’t know their rights and are easily persuaded to forego them. And we have seen instances when even with parents being consulted, children were persuaded to forego access to a lawyer, to their eventual regret. Children are also three times more likely to make a false confession than adults. This is how the members of the Central Park Five were railroaded into long prison sentences. Many years later it was proven that they had committed no crime. How would Mr. Folderauer feel if that happened to his child or grandchild?

The Child Interrogation Protection

Act does not prevent police from talking to kids. It just ensures that young people who are in police custody understand their constitutional rights before an interrogation takes place by giving them 24/7 telephone access to a lawyer.

In October 2023, Baltimore agreed to pay three men who had been unjustly imprisoned as teenagers a total of $48 million to compensate them for the combined 108 years they had spent behind bars (“Baltimore spending board OKs $48 million settlement to three wrongfully convicted in student’s basketball jacket killing,” Oct. 18). Is this the kind of justice that the FOP wants?

— Andrew Miller, Pikesville