Opinion ID: 1391108
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Standard of Reasonableness to be Applied in the Public School System.

Text: The majority concedes that probable cause, the standard applicable in searches of citizens by law enforcement officers, did not exist for the search of the student in this case. The analysis of the majority also suggests that the search of a student in a public school by a law enforcement officer without probable cause would result in suppression of the evidence even under an evidentiary rule of exclusion. The probable cause standard is applicable to the police search but not to the search by the school official. The majority asserts that searches of students in public schools by school officials are reasonable under the Fourth Amendment on considerably less than probable cause. We conclude that in the good faith exercise of their public trust teachers and administrators must be allowed to search without hindrance or delay subject only to the most minimal restraints necessary to insure that students are not whimsically stripped of personal privacy and subjected to petty tyranny. My view, of course, is that there must be probable cause for the search of a student in a public school by a school official, and such a search without probable cause violates the Fourth Amendment rights of a student as a citizen. A student, in my view, cannot be stripped of his Fourth Amendment rights at the entrance to the public school. Nor do I think that the Fourth Amendment rights of a high school student are a diluted version of the Fourth Amendment rights of an adult. There can be no doubt that the need for order and discipline in a public school is a valid concern; but it must be conceded that the maintenance of order and discipline in a public school is one thing, and the acknowledgement and enforcement of constitutional rights in a criminal prosecution is an entirely different thing. This case has nothing to do with the maintenance of school discipline; the State is prosecuting a student for having committed an alleged crime; the student is entitled to a fair prosecution which is an integral part of a fair trial; if an adult had been searched by a government official in the manner that this student was searched, the adult would have, as the majority concedes, a right to suppress any item seized; the adult is entitled to a fair prosecution as an integral part of a fair trial, but a student is not; and all of this adds up to making a public school student a second-class citizen not entitled to a fair prosecution by the State in a fair trial conducted by the State. In the context of criminal prosecutions where Fourth Amendment rights must be acknowledged and enforced, I would hold that the standard of reasonableness for the search of a public school student is the same standard that must be applied to searches of adults, probable cause. I do not think that students have mere minimal Fourth Amendment rights. And I certainly do not subscribe to the adequate reason for the searches enunciated by the majority in this case. As quoted from the majority opinion, the acts of the students in this case involved at most a furtive gesture and an obvious consciousness of guilt by these students at the approach of the assistant principal. In fact, the record shows only that one of three students jumped up and put his hand down his pants. All three were searched. The record does not show whether the student in the present case was the one who jumped up. The majority's standard, subjectively applied by a school official, will justify the search of the person of any student in a public school. Such a standard is really no standard at all. The majority has arrived at its standard by a general balancing test. The majority has placed upon the scales the age of the student, the status of the student, the status of the administrator, the fact that the search occurred in the schoolhouse, and the governmental interests of discipline, security, and enablement of the education function. But why each of these considerations is relevant for purposes of the Fourth Amendment and what weight each brings to the scales remain unclear. For example, the majority stresses the age of the student, citing Ginsburg v. New York for the general proposition that children have lesser constitutional rights than adults. It may be that in some First Amendment contexts the age of a person is relevant to the constitutional balance. Yet nobody has suggested that a high school student standing on the street has less freedom from governmental intrusions upon his privacy than an adult standing beside him. The relevance of age to Fourth Amendment problems is hard to perceive. Similarly, the fact that the search occurred in the schoolhouse cannot bring much weight to the scales if police in the schoolhouse are held to full warrant and probable cause requirements; and the courts addressing this issue here have so held. Piazzola v. Watkins, 442 F2d 284 (5th Cir. 1971); Waters v. United States, 311 A2d 835 (DC App. 1973); People v. Bowers, 72 Misc. 2d 800 (339 NYS2d 783) (NYC Crim Ct. 1973) affd. 77 Misc. 2d 697 (356 NYS2d 432) (App. Div. 1974). What then are the relevant considerations? As the majority states, it is necessary first to focus upon the governmental interest which allegedly justifies official intrusion upon the constitutionally protected interest of the private citizen. Most searches are made in vindication of the State's interest in enforcing the criminal law, which includes, of course, an interest in protecting law abiding citizens from lawless ones. Ordinarily, a lower standard than probable cause is justified only when some additional interest is involved. Even then, the nature and extent of the governmental intrusion must be considered as well as the necessity for the particular form of intrusion. If the governmental interests can be served by a limited intrusion, then the Fourth Amendment permits only the limited intrusion. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U. S. 1 (1968); Camara v. Municipal Court, supra; United States v. Skipwith, 482 F2d 1272 (5th Cir. 1973). The reasoning of the majority places no limits on the nature and extent of the search a school official may make, as long as the search is justified in the first instance under the majority's minimal standard. Furthermore, the facts of the case do not show a limited intrusion of the kind associated with the relaxed standards of reasonableness in Camara and Terry. The search here was personal in nature and aimed at the discovery of evidence of specific misconduct. See Camara, 387 U. S. p. 537. Compare Sibron v. New York, 392 U. S. 40 (1968), where emptying a suspect's pocket was not justified by the same considerations which justified a pat-down search in Terry. The governmental considerations said to be in issue are not very convincing in the context of this case. The facts give not the slightest hint of any threat to the enablement of the education function in the conduct of the students before the search. If we are to restrict a student's privacy in his own person in the name of education, let us do so on a record which provides evidence of potential disruption or disorder. There is none here. Compare Tinker v. Des Moines School District, supra, 393 U. S., p. 511. Furthermore, in the context of the present case, the government's interest in discipline and security is indistinguishable from the general law enforcement interest. See Buss, The Fourth Amendment and Searches of Students in Public Schools, 59 Iowa L. Rev. 739 (1974). What of the special status of the school official? Most courts ruling on schoolhouse searches have stressed this factor, noting that at common law school officials are said to stand in loco parentis. The majority here correctly avoids reliance on common law maxims, although much of the reasoning has the same familiar ring. It cannot be doubted that a school official occupies a status different from a police officer for many purposes. But the school official also has essentially law enforcement responsibilities. When he acts upon a suspicion of specific misconduct and conducts an investigation he is performing a law enforcement function. What so many of the courts persist in talking about as a parental relationship between school and the student is really a law enforcement relationship in which the general student society is protected from the harms of anti-social conduct. As such, it should be subjected to law enforcement rules. Besides presenting a false picture of a person acting in a parental fashion, casting the school administrator in the parental role diverts attention from the relevant considerations that might argue for or against permitting the search. Buss, supra, at p. 768. The schoolhouse search presents a unique situation. The question is whether its unique aspects reduce high school students to second-class citizens under the Fourth Amendment. I have examined what the case law establishes as the primary considerations under the Fourth Amendment and have tried to examine the facts of this particular case in the light of those considerations. I conclude that a school official performing a law enforcement function conducted a search of the person. I find no basis on this record for relieving the official of the probable cause requirement. Furthermore, I conclude that a search of three students after one of them jumps up and puts his hand down his pants is unreasonable. Underlying the position of the majority in this case is a concern about the potential civil liability of school officials for violations of Fourth Amendment rights. The answer to that problem is not to apply a watered-down Fourth Amendment standard in criminal prosecutions but to recognize a qualified immunity for school officials in civil actions. The Supreme Court has recently done just that. Wood v. Strickland, ___ U. S. ___ (95 SC , 43 LE2d 214). (1975). The effect of the present decision is to combine that qualified immunity with a minimal standard of reasonableness and an abandonment of the right to suppress evidence. The result is that there is no effective judicial sanction for violations of a high school student's Fourth Amendment rights by a school official.