Jimmie Bowen v. Secretary, Florida Department of Corrections

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 1 of 19

[PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 22-11744

____________________

JIMMIE L. BOWEN,

Petitioner-Appellee,

versus

SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,

Respondent-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-23952-KMW

____________________

Before WILSON, GRANT, and BRASHER, Circuit Judges.

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 2 of 19

2 Opinion of the Court 22-11744

GRANT, Circuit Judge:

State criminal defendants can receive federal habeas corpus

relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 only in limited circumstances. One of

those is when the state court whose decision is under review

decided an issue in a way that involved an “unreasonable

application” of clearly established federal law. Jimmie Bowen says

the Florida courts did just that in his case. He argues that the

Florida trial court clearly violated Miranda by refusing to suppress

incriminating statements he made to a fellow suspect when police

placed the two in an interrogation room after he had invoked his

right to counsel. The district court agreed and overturned his

conviction. But the Supreme Court’s cases are—at best—murky

on when putting two suspects in a room together qualifies as

interrogation under Miranda. Because reasonable jurists could

disagree about whether Bowen was “interrogated” in the interview

room, federal courts lack the power to upset his state criminal

conviction. We therefore reverse the district court.

I.

Jimmie Bowen and his gang, New Moneii, had a bone to

pick with Pierre Roche, who was selling drugs on New Moneii’s

turf. Years before, the gang’s leaders had shot Roche for the same

perceived violation—but he did not change his habits. The turf

dispute continued, and when sixteen-year-old Bowen spotted

Roche playing dominoes nearby, he hatched a plan to execute him.

This time, the gang got its target. Bowen killed Roche, shooting

him from close range. He even stood directly over him, firing

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 3 of 19

22-11744 Opinion of the Court 3

more rounds to make sure the grisly task was complete. But Roche

was not the only victim. Bowen also wounded Christopher Smith,

another dominoes player, and shot and killed Derrick Days, Jr.—a

ten-month-old baby sitting in his father’s lap across the table.

Bowen was not immediately identified. He was wearing a

face covering, and witnesses could describe him only as a black

male, roughly five feet eight inches tall. The police had no leads

until an associate of Bowen’s identified him as the shooter. That

same person also told the police that Bernard Jones, a seventeen-

year-old member of the New Moneii gang, was the getaway driver.

Bowen and Jones were soon arrested.

The detectives first questioned Bowen and Jones separately.

After they advised Bowen of his Miranda rights, both he and his

mother invoked his right to counsel. The detectives then ceased

their questioning and left the interrogation room. Jones, by

contrast, waived his Miranda rights and spoke with Detective Jean

Solis that same day. The details of their conversation are not clear,

but at one point while they were together, Solis observed that

Bowen was calling Jones’s cell phone. Jones did not pick up.

Some time after Bowen invoked his rights, Solis moved him

to a second interrogation room. Soon enough, Jones was there too.

Solis informed the two suspects that they would remain there until

transportation to the Juvenile Assessment Center could be

arranged. He activated audio and video recording in the room, but

neither Solis nor any other law enforcement officer asked either

suspect to speak with the other about the murders. Nor did anyone

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 4 of 19

4 Opinion of the Court 22-11744

promise any benefit to one suspect in return for seeking

information from the other.

Even so, the two began talking almost immediately. The

microphone in the room picked up several incriminating

statements from Bowen, who implicitly acknowledged that he was

the shooter (and that Jones was the driver), accurately described

the scene of the crime, and incredulously wondered how the police

had “the two right motherf***ers.” He and Jones, Bowen said,

were the only living people to “know the truth.”

The state brought charges, and Bowen moved to suppress

his statements to Jones, alleging violations of the Fourth, Fifth, and

Sixth Amendments, the Florida Constitution, and Florida’s wiretap

statute. Bowen testified that he talked with Jones because he

“wanted to,” and knew that he could have refused to do so. Still,

he argued that Detective Solis, by placing Jones in the interview

room with him after he had invoked his Miranda rights, effectively

“interrogated” him in violation the Fifth Amendment.

At the suppression hearing, Solis shared several motivations

for putting Bowen and Jones in the room together. He first testified

that it was so they could await transportation to the Juvenile

Assessment Center. But he later admitted to recognizing that the

two suspects might speak to each other about the murders—

indeed, hoping they would—and conceded that this possibility

informed his decision to put them in the same room. After taking

evidence and hearing arguments, the state court issued a short oral

ruling denying Bowen’s suppression motion.

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 5 of 19

22-11744 Opinion of the Court 5

At the end of the trial, before both sides began their closing

arguments, Bowen renewed his motion to suppress. The state

court again denied it, and the jury found Bowen guilty on all

counts. The court sentenced him to life in prison with judicial

review after twenty-five years. He appealed to the Florida district

court of appeal, arguing, among other things, that the trial court

erred when it denied his motion to suppress. The appeal was

denied without opinion. Bowen v. State, 184 So. 3d 533 (Fla. Dist.

Ct. App. 2016). Bowen subsequently filed several other state post-

conviction motions, all of which were also denied.

He then moved to federal court, filing a petition for habeas

corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254. The petition raised several claims

related to Bowen’s interrogation-room statements to Jones,

including that his placement in the room violated Miranda, federal

and state guarantees of due process, and the state wiretap statute.

Faced with the limited rationale offered in the state court’s

oral ruling, the magistrate judge properly attempted to theorize

what reasoning could have supported that court’s denial of the

motion to suppress. See Harrington v. Richter, 562 U.S. 86, 98, 102

(2011); Pye v. Warden, Georgia Diagnostic Prison, 50 F.4th 1025, 1035–

41 (11th Cir. 2022) (en banc). The only plausible theory, she

concluded, was that placing Bowen and Jones together did not

amount to custodial interrogation. Bowen v. Sec’y, Florida Dep’t of

Corr., No. 19-23952-CV, 2020 WL 13281250, at *7–8 (S.D. Fla. July

29, 2020). But despite recognizing AEDPA’s deferential standard

of review, the magistrate judge found the state-court ruling

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 6 of 19

6 Opinion of the Court 22-11744

“patently unreasonable.” Id. at *10. The district court agreed and

granted the petition, concluding that “‘clearly established’

Supreme Court precedent left no ‘fairminded’ dispute” about the

alleged Miranda violation. Bowen v. Dixon, No. 19-CIV-23952, 2022

WL 1521983, at *1 (S.D. Fla. May 13, 2022). This appeal followed.

II.

We review a district court’s ruling on a petition for habeas

corpus de novo. Smith v. Comm’r, Alabama Dep’t of Corr., 924 F.3d

1330, 1336 (11th Cir. 2019).

III.

Under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of

1996, also known as AEDPA, a federal court may not grant habeas

relief to a state prisoner “with respect to any claim that was

adjudicated on the merits in State court,” unless the adjudication

(1) “resulted in a decision that was contrary to, or involved an

unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as

determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,” or

(2) “resulted in a decision that was based on an unreasonable

determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the

State court proceeding.” 28 U.S.C. § 2254(d).

A state-court adjudication qualifies as “contrary to” clearly

established federal law if that court contradicted the Supreme

Court on a question of law, or if it arrived at a different conclusion

than the Supreme Court did in a case with materially

indistinguishable facts. Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 405–06

(2000). And a state-court adjudication involves an “unreasonable

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 7 of 19

22-11744 Opinion of the Court 7

application of” clearly established federal law if the decision was

“so obviously wrong that its error lies beyond any possibility for

fairminded disagreement.” Shinn v. Kayer, 592 U.S. 111, 118 (2020)

(per curiam) (quotation omitted).

By this standard, to justify habeas relief a Supreme Court

precedent must “clearly require the state court” to have adopted a

different result. Kernan v. Cuero, 583 U.S. 1, 3 (2017) (per curiam).

The unreasonable-application standard is thus significantly higher

than a showing that the state court was incorrect, or even that it

clearly erred. Shinn, 592 U.S. at 118. The bottom line is this: a

“state court’s determination that a claim lacks merit precludes

federal habeas relief so long as fairminded jurists could disagree on

the correctness of the state court’s decision.” Pye, 50 F.4th at 1034

(quoting Richter, 562 U.S. at 101).

On each claim for relief, we review the “last state-court

adjudication on the merits.” See Greene v. Fisher, 565 U.S. 34, 40

(2011). But when that final merits adjudication does not offer

specific reasons in support of its holding, we “‘look through’ the

unexplained decision to the last related state-court decision that

does provide a relevant rationale.” Wilson v. Sellers, 138 S. Ct. 1188,

1192 (2018). Still, even when “looking through” to another

opinion, federal courts must defer to the state court’s ruling, not its

specific reasoning. Pye, 50 F.4th 1035–41. Put simply, state-court

decisions must be “given the benefit of the doubt”—there must

have been “no reasonable basis” for the state court’s action.

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 8 of 19

8 Opinion of the Court 22-11744

Raulerson v. Warden, 928 F.3d 987, 996 (11th Cir. 2019) (quoting

Cullen v. Pinholster, 563 U.S. 170, 181 (2011)); Richter, 562 U.S. at 98.

That is because federal habeas review of state convictions

“disturbs the State’s significant interest in repose for concluded

litigation, denies society the right to punish some admitted

offenders, and intrudes on state sovereignty to a degree matched

by few exercises of federal judicial authority.” Richter, 562 U.S. at

103 (quotation omitted). State courts—not federal—“play the

leading role in assessing challenges to state sentences based on

federal law.” Shinn, 592 U.S. at 124. The federal judiciary is a

backstop, guarding against only “extreme malfunctions” in state

courts, not engaging in “ordinary error correction through appeal.”

Richter, 562 U.S. at 102–03 (quotation omitted). AEDPA’s

standards are thus highly deferential and “difficult to meet”—

intentionally and for good reason. Pinholster, 563 U.S. at 181

(quoting Richter, 562 U.S. at 102).

Habeas review, in short, is a uniquely powerful form of

federal intrusion into state affairs. AEDPA significantly—and

appropriately—constrains federal-court forays into state

convictions, denying us the authority to correct all but the most

obvious, and least arguable, state-court errors.

IV.

We now apply those standards here. Bowen argues that his

state conviction should be vacated because his self-incriminating

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 9 of 19

22-11744 Opinion of the Court 9

statements were the product of a Miranda violation.1 Specifically,

he claims that Officer Solis’s decision to place him in a seemingly

private space with a fellow suspect amounted to an interrogation—

and thus a violation of Miranda—under Rhode Island v. Innis, 446

U.S. 291 (1980). Bowen, however, relies on an incomplete account

of the Supreme Court’s precedents on interrogation, and the

Florida courts reasonably concluded that his Miranda rights were

not violated. Habeas relief is not appropriate because fairminded

jurists, applying clearly established federal law to this record, could

(rather straightforwardly) agree with the state court that Solis did

not violate Bowen’s Miranda rights.

A.

The Fifth Amendment provides that no person “shall be

compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”

U.S. Const. amend. V. In service of this privilege, the Supreme

Court held in Miranda v. Arizona that the government may not use

1 At oral argument, counsel for Bowen also argued, for the first time, that the

state court did not rule on the merits of the Fifth Amendment claim. We do

not consider this argument as it was not raised squarely before the district

court. Bryant v. Jones, 575 F.3d 1281, 1308 (11th Cir. 2009). But even in the

face of light reasoning—it was, after all, an oral ruling—we easily conclude

that the court did rule on the Miranda claim. To start, federal courts generally

presume that a state court rules on the merits when it denies relief after a

federal claim has been presented. Richter, 562 U.S. at 99. Neither party

disputed that presumption before the district court. See Bowen, 2020 WL

13281250, report and recommendation adopted, Bowen, 2022 WL 1521983. And as

a matter of logic, the trial judge could not have allowed the statements to be

introduced without rejecting Bowen’s Fifth Amendment claim.

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 10 of 19

10 Opinion of the Court 22-11744

statements offered while a suspect was in “custodial interrogation”

unless that suspect was informed of his rights. 384 U.S. 436, 444

(1966). This post-arrest catechism is known as the Miranda

warning. Once that warning is made, if an individual invokes his

right to counsel, interrogation cannot resume until counsel is

present. Edwards v. Arizona, 451 U.S. 477, 484–85 (1981).

But Miranda does not require a warning, or otherwise

impose restrictions, anytime police speak with someone—even if

that someone is a suspect. Instead, its protections apply only in

custodial interrogation. Custodial interrogation, in turn, is defined

as “questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person

has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom

of action in any significant way.” Miranda, 384 U.S. at 444. Rhode

Island v. Innis further clarified that definition (or muddied it,

depending on who you ask). There, the Court explained that

interrogation includes both “express questioning” and “its

functional equivalent.” Innis, 446 U.S. at 300–01.

The functional equivalent of express questioning, according

to Innis, encompasses “any words or actions” by the police that

they “should know are reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating

response from the suspect.” Id. at 301 (footnote omitted). This

part of the definition is objective, focusing “primarily upon the

perceptions of the suspect, rather than the intent of the police.” Id.

Although the officer’s subjective intentions may remain relevant to

the analysis, that is only because those intentions can inform the

objective inquiry. An action designed to elicit an incriminating

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 11 of 19

22-11744 Opinion of the Court 11

response, for example, is more likely to be one the officer should

know is objectively likely to do so. Id. at 301 & n.7.

“Interrogation” is more than just “subtle compulsion.” Id.

at 303. Under Miranda, interrogation “must reflect a measure of

compulsion above and beyond that inherent in custody itself.” Id.

at 300. Still, as Bowen emphasizes, the Supreme Court has

recognized that any police knowledge of a suspect’s “unusual

susceptibility” to a “particular form of persuasion” can inform

whether the officer should have known the action taken was

reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response. Id. at 302 n.8.

What Bowen does not emphasize is that even after this

elaboration, the Innis Court found no interrogation. See id. at 302.

There, the police—with suspect Innis in the back of their car in easy

earshot of the conversation—had talked among themselves,

expressing their concern over a missing shotgun near a school for

handicapped children. Id. at 294–95. Innis remained silent at first,

but as the officers continued to worry out loud about the children’s

safety, he divulged the gun’s location. Id. The Supreme Court

concluded that such “subtle compulsion” was not the functional

equivalent of interrogation and that Innis’s Miranda rights were

respected. Id. at 302–03.

Over time, the Supreme Court has elaborated on Innis’s

definition of interrogation, emphasizing that whether a given

police practice amounts to interrogation must be determined in

light of Miranda’s purpose: “preventing government officials from

using the coercive nature of confinement to extract confessions

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 12 of 19

12 Opinion of the Court 22-11744

that would not be given in an unrestrained environment.” Arizona

v. Mauro, 481 U.S. 520, 529–30 (1987). In Mauro, for example, the

Court found no error when the police allowed a suspect’s wife to

speak to him after he had invoked his Miranda rights. Id. at 521–25.

The police admitted they knew it was “possible” that Mauro would

incriminate himself, yet refused to allow the conversation unless it

was recorded and an officer was present. Id. at 522–24. The state

court concluded that an incriminating statement was “reasonably

likely” under Innis’s standard. Id. at 524–25. The Supreme Court

disagreed. It reversed, emphasizing that Mauro was not subject to

any “compelling influences, psychological ploys, or direct

questioning.” Id. at 525–30.

The majority and dissenting opinions in Mauro debated

whether incrimination was just a “possibility” as opposed to

“reasonably likely,” or even “highly probable” on the facts of that

case, and struggled to weigh the importance of the officers’

admissions about their subjective intentions. See id. at 526–28; id.

at 531–36 (Stevens, J., dissenting). Ultimately, the Court concluded

that Innis’s standard was not violated: the police had a permissible

purpose for sending Mrs. Mauro in to see her husband, and

allowing the two of them to speak was not the functional

equivalent of interrogation. Id. at 528–30 (majority opinion).

The majority, at least indirectly, suggested that the Miranda

inquiry should be infused with the core of the Fifth Amendment

privilege—protection against coercion. That it was Mrs. Mauro’s

idea to speak to her husband became highly relevant; how could a

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 13 of 19

22-11744 Opinion of the Court 13

conversation, held at the parties’ own insistence, compel them to

speak? See id. at 528. Given that Mauro “could have chosen not to

speak to his wife,” his “volunteered statements” were not properly

considered the “result of police interrogation.” Id. at 528 n.5, 529

(quotation omitted). Allowing someone to be in a position where

they may choose to make incriminating statements is not the “kind

of psychological ploy that properly could be treated as the

functional equivalent of interrogation.” Id. at 527. After all, officers

“do not interrogate a suspect simply by hoping that he will

incriminate himself.” Id. at 529. So there was no “interrogation”

when law enforcement officers were only witnesses to a

conversation between the accused and his spouse—even though

they knew about and recorded the conversation. Id. at 529.

Likewise, schemes to “mislead a suspect or lull him into a

false sense of security that do not rise to the level of compulsion or

coercion to speak are not within Miranda’s concerns.” Illinois v.

Perkins, 496 U.S. 292, 297 (1990). In Perkins, police placed an

undercover agent in a jail cell and instructed the agent to engage a

suspect in casual conversation and report back anything he heard

about a murder they were investigating. Id. at 294–95. Without

first reading the suspect his rights, the agent asked him if he had

ever “done” anybody, at which point he made incriminating

statements about the murder. Id. The Supreme Court decided that

even this did not violate Miranda’s protections. Id. at 296–300.

“Conversations between suspects and undercover agents do not

implicate the concerns underlying Miranda” because the “essential

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 14 of 19

14 Opinion of the Court 22-11744

ingredients of a ‘police-dominated atmosphere’ and compulsion

are not present.” Id. at 296.

The Court emphasized that “Miranda forbids coercion, not

mere strategic deception,” and coercion “is determined from the

perspective of the suspect.” Id. at 296–97 (citing Innis, 446 U.S. at

301). There is no coercion, the Court said, when the officer “wears

not police blue, but the same prison gray.” Id. at 297 (quotation

omitted). Perkins, unaware that he was talking with an undercover

agent, could not have been coerced into speaking because he had

“no reason to think that the listeners [had] official power over

him.” Id. Thus, in conversations where “the suspect does not

know that he is speaking to a government agent,” there is “no

reason to assume the possibility that the suspect might feel

coerced”—which means Miranda protections do not apply. Id. at

299.

The Perkins Court made explicit what had been suggested in

Mauro: some measure of compulsion is required before Miranda

rights attach. So the “reasonably likely” language from Innis does

not eliminate the fundamental requirement of coercion in deciding

whether police conduct is the functional equivalent of

interrogation. Courts instead must enforce the principles

underlying the Fifth Amendment privilege—a proscription against

compelled testimony. See U.S. Const. amend. V.

B.

A fairminded jurist, applying the Innis–Mauro–Perkins trio of

cases, could conclude that Solis’s decision to place Bowen in an

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 15 of 19

22-11744 Opinion of the Court 15

interrogation room with Jones was not a Miranda violation. These

cases certainly do not “clearly require the state court” to have

reached the opposite conclusion. See Kernan, 583 U.S. at 3. In fact,

they show that police actions that lead to a suspect making

incriminating statements to a third party are the functional

equivalent of interrogation only if they involve some

“psychological ploy” with sufficient coercive elements. See Mauro,

481 U.S. at 527; Perkins, 496 U.S. at 297.

Here, there was no psychological ploy. Like the wife in

Mauro, Jones was operating completely independently from the

police, as was Bowen, who spoke to Jones only because he “wanted

to.” And just like the suspect in Perkins, Bowen did not believe that

he was in the presence of law enforcement officers, so it is not at

all clear why he would have felt the coercive pressure of police

interrogation. A fairminded jurist could thus conclude that placing

Bowen and Jones in a room together was the strategic use of a

neutral situation rather than a coercive psychological ploy.

Yes, an officer’s knowledge of a suspect’s young age may be

relevant because the risk of coercion is more “acute” when “the

subject of custodial interrogation is a juvenile.” J.D.B. v. North

Carolina, 564 U.S. 261, 269, 277 (2011); see also Innis, 446 U.S. at 302

n.8. But relevancy is not the same as certainty. Far from it. Neither

J.D.B. nor any other case affirmatively requires a court to determine

that Bowen’s youth was dispositive here.

What’s more, it is not obvious that all jurists would agree

that it was reasonably likely that Bowen would incriminate himself

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 16 of 19

16 Opinion of the Court 22-11744

if Jones was placed in the same room. The Supreme Court has not

provided much guidance on Innis’s “reasonably likely” language,

but Mauro instructs us that a mere “possibility” of incrimination is

not enough. See Mauro, 481 U.S. at 528–29. Here, Solis did not

interrogate Bowen merely by “hoping” he would incriminate

himself. Id. at 529. And there is room for disagreement about

whether it was “reasonably likely” that Bowen would do so. After

all, he had been arrested and read his rights many times before—

and fully understood that he could have refused to speak to

anyone. That Bowen did incriminate himself is not enough to

show with certainty that it was reasonably likely that he would do

so when Jones was placed in the room.

In short, the facts place Bowen’s challenge in a gray area that

is not unambiguously dictated by Supreme Court precedent. That

is the exact type of case where § 2254 relief is inappropriate.

* * *

Federal courts have the power to overturn state criminal

convictions only in exceptional circumstances. This is not one of

them. The Florida court’s decision was not “so obviously wrong

that its error lies ‘beyond any possibility for fairminded

disagreement.’” Shinn, 592 U.S. at 118 (quoting Richter, 562 U.S. at

103). Accordingly, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court

and REMAND for further proceedings not inconsistent with this

opinion.

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 17 of 19

22-11744 WILSON, J., Concurring in the Judgement 1

WILSON, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment:

Due to AEDPA’s deferential standard of review, I concur in

the majority’s judgment. I write separately to emphasize the

significance of the defendant’s age and the heightened concern that

should attach to cases involving juveniles.

Our precedent maintains that Miranda rights are not

implicated where “[t]he essential ingredients of a ‘police-

dominated atmosphere’ and compulsion are not present.” Illinois

v. Perkins, 496 U.S. 292, 296 (1990); see also United States v. Stubbs,

944 F.2d 828, 832 (11th Cir. 1991) (applying Perkins to find that

“Miranda and Fifth Amendment concerns are not implicated when

a defendant misplaces her trust in a cellmate who then relays the

information—whether voluntarily or by prearrangement—to law

enforcement officials.”).

Miranda, as the majority appropriately explains, turns on the

presence of a custodial interrogation, defined as “express

questioning or its functional equivalent.” Rhode Island v. Innis, 446

U.S. 291, 300–01 (1980). Here, a co-defendant was placed, albeit

purposefully, in the same interrogation room with Bowen. Bowen

confessed to this co-defendant, and the police recorded the

confession. These facts are not sufficiently different from Perkins

to warrant finding that the state’s decision was “an unreasonable

application of, clearly established Federal law.” 28 U.S.C.

§ 2254(d)(1).

But what I do find troubling is how Bowen’s age interplays

with the voluntariness of his confession. At the time he was taken

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 18 of 19

2 WILSON, J., Concurring in the Judgment 22-11744

into custody, Bowen was only sixteen years old with a ninth-grade

education. Prior to being left in the interrogation room, he clearly

invoked his Miranda rights, as did his mother on his behalf.

In Hall v. Thomas, I also wrote separately to emphasize that

“the greatest care must be taken to assure that the confession of a

juvenile [is] voluntary.” 611 F.3d 1259, 1294 (11th Cir. 2010)

(Wilson, J., concurring) (internal quotations omitted).

Ascertaining voluntariness requires understanding the totality of

the circumstances that led to a waiver and confession, including

evaluating “‘the juvenile’s age, experience, education, background,

and intelligence, and [] whether he has the capacity to understand

the warnings given him, the nature of his Fifth Amendment rights,

and the consequences of waiving those rights.’” Id. at 1285

(quoting Fare v. Michael C., 442 U.S. 707, 725 (1979)). Voluntariness

will thus turn on whether “the entire record was before the state

court . . . and [whether] the record amply supported that finding.”

Id. at 1287.

The year after Hall, the Supreme Court held that “so long as

the child’s age was known to the officer at the time of police

questioning, or would have been objectively apparent to a

reasonable officer, its inclusion in the custody analysis is consistent

with the objective nature of that [inquiry].” J.D.B. v. North Carolina,

564 U.S. 261, 277 (2011). In reaching this conclusion, the Court

wrote that “[t]ime and again,” it has expressed that children are to

be held in a different light than adults, seeing as they “generally are

less mature and responsible than adults” and more vulnerable and

USCA11 Case: 22-11744 Document: 32-1 Date Filed: 02/15/2024 Page: 19 of 19

22-11744 WILSON, J., Concurring in the Judgement 3

susceptible to influence and psychological damage. Id. at 272

(quotations omitted).

Below, citing to J.D.B., the district court explained that the

risk of an involuntary confession is “acute” when dealing with

juveniles. Id. at 269. I echo their sentiments here. My analysis

diverges with the majority in that I believe the majority treats

J.D.B. too lightly. The majority writes that in considering a

suspect’s young age, “relevancy is not the same as certainty. . . .

Neither J.D.B. nor any other case affirmatively requires a court to

determine that Bowen’s youth was dispositive here.” I do not

contend that age should be dispositive. I do however, as I wrote in

Hall, contend that the “greatest care” should be exercised to ensure

that a juvenile’s statements were voluntarily and freely given.