William Kritsonis, School Law, Ch 9 Search and Seizure

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Search and Seizurein Public Schools

• William Allan Kritsonis, PhD

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Basis

• Fourth Amendment to the United States
  Constitution
• The right of the people to be secure in their
  persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
  unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
  violated and no Warrants shall issue, but upon
  probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation,
  and particularly describing the place to be
  searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

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Basis cont

• Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution
  (Due Process) school officials who plan to
  discipline a student or employee must first
  provide the alleged wrong-doer with
• Specific information about the charges and the
  evidence behind it
• A chance to tell his or her side of the story

4

• The challenge for school districts and the
  courts is to balance students constitutional
  rights with the need for safety and preventing
  violence or disregard for school rules
  (www.centerforpubliceducation.org).

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School Specific Situations

• Drug testing students in extracurricular
  activities
• Drug-sniffing dogs on campus
• Locker searches and metal detectors
• Backpacks, wallet, and personal computer searches
• Searching a students car in the parking lot

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Court Precedents

• New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985)
• The purse of a female high school student was
  searched upon suspect of her smoking in girls
  school restroom. Student denied the incident.
  Her purse was searched by a school administrator
  who uncovered not only cigarettes, but also
  marijuana and writings indicating the student had
  been selling marijuana (Lacroix, 2008).

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Ruling

• School officials act as representatives of the
  state, not merely as surrogates for parents
• School setting requires some easing of the
  restrictions to which searches by public
  authorities are ordinarily subject

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• Neither the warrant requirement nor the probable
  cause standard is appropriate (caselaw.lp.findlaw)
  
• Simple reasonableness governs all searches of
  students persons and effects by school
  authorities
• Reasonable grounds for suspecting that the
  search will turn up evidence that the student has
  violated or is violating either the law or the
  rules of the school (caselaw.lp.findlaw)

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Supreme Court Ruling in New Jersey v. T.L.O.
(1985)

• Todays public school officials do not merely
  exercise authority voluntarily conferred on them
  by individual parents rather they act in
  furtherance of publicly mandated educational and
  disciplinary policies.

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• School searches must be reasonably related in
  scope to the circumstances justifying the
  interference, and not excessively intrusive in
  light of the age and sex of the student and the
  nature of the infraction (caselaw.lp.findlaw)

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Court PrecedentStrip Searches

• Board v. Whitmore Lake School
• Female student reported 364 missing from her gym
  bag during PE class. In response, teachers
  searched the entire class in their locker rooms.
  Boys were required to undress down to their
  underwear, girls were required to do the same in
  front of each other. No money was found.

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Sixth Court of Appeal Ruling The Board v.
Whitmore Lake School

• Strip Search Unreasonable
• Recovery of money was primary basis for search,
  which did not pose a threat to health or safety
• Search involved a large group of students who did
  not consent to the search
• School personnel had no reason to suspect any of
  the students individually

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• Strip searches should be avoided except under
  extreme circumstances involving health and safety
  of other students (Essex, 2005).

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Drug Testing

• In his 2004 State of the Union Address, President
  Bush stated
• I propose an additional 23 million dollars for
  schools that want to use drug testing as a tool
  to save childrens lives. The aim here is not to
  punish children, but to send this this message
  We love you, and dont want to lose you.

15

• Random, suspicionless drug testing of public
  school students will distance students from
  school personnel as long as it remains in the
  schools arsenal (Lacroix, 2008).

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Court PrecedentRandom Drug Testing

• Vernonia v. Acton (1995)
• Vernonia teenagers became noticeably attracted to
  the drug culture and student drug use was on
  the rise. Students boasted there was nothing
  the school could do about it.
• The Vernonia School District instituted a policy
  requiring all student athletes to submit to
  random drug testing by urinalysis in order to
  play sports

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Supreme Court Ruling

• The privacy expectations of public school
  students were less than those of the general
  public
• Legitimate privacy expectations are even less
  with regard to student athletes. An element of
  communal undress is inherent in athletic
  participation, with open locker rooms, community
  showers, and even doorless toilet stalls

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• Athletes subject themselves to regulation just by
  signing up for a team. They have to keep their
  grades up, submit to a pre-season physical exam,
  and comply with the coachs rules, among other
  things.
• School sports are not for the bashful.

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• Voluntary nudity in front of peers, a minor
  consequence of athletic participation,
  constitutes implied consent to being observed
  during the very personal process of urination by
  an adult who is present only for that reason, and
  whose ultimate purpose is to perform scientific
  tests on the urine to discover if something very
  major is going on in the athletes private life.

20
Supreme Court Ruling on the Character of
Intrusion

• The manner in which the samples were taken was
  typical of the environment of public restrooms,
  and therefore the privacy interests compromised
  were neglible.
• The governments scientific examination of a
  citizens bodily fluids is not significant
  because the urine is tested only for drugs and
  the results given only to a few people.

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Board of Education v. Earls (2002)

• The right of a school to randomly test for drugs
  in the urine of all students involved in an
  extracurricular activity was upheld.

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• The courts have thus spoken on the issue, and
  the war on drugs lawfully extends to the
  governments collection and scientific inspection
  of the bodily fluids of the hockey-playing,
  trumpet-blowing, debating, cheerleading youth of
  America (Lacroix, 2008).

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Ingraham v. Wright (1977)Corporal Punishment

• The inferior legal status of children thus
  explains why students in schools can be subjected
  to searches, violations of free speech, and
  corporal punishment much more frequently than
  adults are (Lewis, 2006).
• 27 states currently sanction corporal punishment

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References

• Essex, N. L. (2005). Student privacy rights
  involving strip searches. Education and the Law,
  17(3), 105-110.
• Lacroix, T. (2008). Student drug testing the
  blinding appeal of in loco parentis and the
  importance of state protection of student rights.
  2, 251-2790.
• Lewis, T. E. (2006). The school is an
  exceptional space rethinking education from the
  perspective of the biopedagogical. Educational
  theory, 56(2), 159-176.
• U.S. constitution fourth amendment, Findlaw for
  legal professionals, retrieved 9/30/08.
  www.caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amend
  ment04/

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• Search and seizure, due process, and public
  schools. The center for public education,
  retrieved 9/30/08. www.centerforpubliceducation.o
  rg