Opinion ID: 12443
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Absence of testing policy; Individualized suspicion

Text: 44 Dr. Pierce does not essentially challenge the foregoing analysis, nor does she contend that appellants were required to obtain a warrant or establish probable cause. Instead, she contends that, as it is undisputed that TTUHSC had no drug testing policy for its physicians or residents, the Fourth Amendment accordingly precluded appellants from telling her she would be dismissed if she did not undergo urinalysis arranged by Dr. Robert Smith, unless appellants had reasonable, individualized suspicion that she was using illicit drugs. The character of reasonable, individualized suspicion which Dr. Pierce contends is necessary appears to be essentially that required for a law enforcement Terry stop 14 where the officer's only concern respecting the person stopped is that he may then have drugs. Dr. Pierce further contends that there was no basis here for that character of suspicion. 45 However, we conclude that the clearly established law does not now, and did not in March 1990, categorically mandate that sort of reasonable, individualized suspicion for all non-law enforcement, minimally intrusive searches in special needs situations, whenever there was no pre-existing policy authorizing the search. 46 To begin with, neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has ever articulated such a categorical requirement. To the contrary, the Court has repeatedly stated: the Fourth Amendment imposes no irreducible requirement of such suspicion, Acton at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 2391; neither a warrant nor probable cause, nor, indeed, any measure of reasonable suspicion is an indispensable component of reasonableness in every circumstance, Von Raab at 665, 109 S.Ct. at 1390; We have made it clear, however, that a showing of individualized suspicion is not a constitutional floor, below which a search must be presumed unreasonable, Skinner at 624, 109 S.Ct. at 1417; the Fourth Amendment imposes no irreducible requirement of reasonable suspicion, United States v. Martinez-Fuerte, 428 U.S. 543, 561, 96 S.Ct. 3074, 3084, 49 L.Ed.2d 1116 (1976). It is true, of course, that in each of these cases there was some sort of policy. However, in none of these cases did the Court condition its quoted statements with any sort of proviso, such as so long as there was a general policy pursuant to which the search was conducted or the like. To the contrary, as further elaborated below, these opinions indicate that whether individualized suspicion may be dispensed with depends on the particular context and a weighing of the invasiveness of the search against the special needs presented. Indeed, in T.L.O. and also in O'Connor, in neither of which was the challenged search conducted pursuant to any general policy, the Court, although sustaining the search after finding reasonable suspicion, went on to expressly leave open whether such a finding was necessary to the search's validity. Thus, in T.L.O. the Court stated: 47 We do not decide whether individualized suspicion is an essential element of the reasonableness standard we adopt for searches by school authorities. In other contexts, however, we have held that although 'some quantum of individualized suspicion is usually a prerequisite to a constitutional search or seizure[,] ... the Fourth Amendment imposes no irreducible requirement of such suspicion ... Because the search of T.L.O.'s purse was based upon an individualized suspicion that she had violated school rules, ... we need not consider the circumstances that might justify school authorities in conducting searches unsupported by individualized suspicion. T.L.O. at 342 n. 8, 105 S.Ct. at 743 n. 8 (internal citation omitted; emphasis added). 48 Two years later in O'Connor the same approach was taken, viz: Because petitioners had an 'individualized suspicion' of misconduct by Dr. Ortega, we need not decide whether individualized suspicion is an essential element of the standard of reasonableness that we adopt today. O'Connor at 726, 107 S.Ct. at 1502. What the Supreme Court has expressly left open cannot easily be described as clearly established, particularly as we have never ruled on the matter. 49 Moreover, Dr. Pierce's categorical approach seems counter to the Supreme Court's context-specific, balancing approach focusing on reasonableness under all the particular circumstances. Thus, in Chandler the Court noted that, when  'special needs'  other than crime detection were present, whether individualized suspicion was required depended on a context specific inquiry, examining closely the competing private and public interests. Id. at ----, 117 S.Ct. at 1301. And, in Acton the Court stated: 50 ... the ultimate measure of the constitutionality of a governmental search is 'reasonableness.' ... [W]hether a particular search meets the reasonableness standard ' is judged by balancing its intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against the promotion of legitimate governmental interests. '  Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 2390 (emphasis added; citations omitted). 51 .... 52 It is a mistake, however, to think that the phrase 'compelling state interest,' in the Fourth Amendment context, describes a fixed, minimum quantum of governmental concern, so that one can dispose of a case by answering in isolation the question: Is there a compelling state interest here? Rather, the phrase describes an interest which appears important enough to justify the particular search at hand, in light of other factors which show the search to be relatively intrusive upon a genuine expectation of privacy. Id. at ---- - ----, 115 S.Ct. at 2394-95 (emphasis added). Skinner also puts the matter thusly: 53 ... the Fourth Amendment does not proscribe all searches and seizures, but only those that are unreasonable. [citation] What is reasonable, of course, 'depends on all of the circumstances surrounding the search or seizure and the nature of the search or seizure itself.'  Id. at 619, 109 S.Ct. at 1414 (quoting United States v. Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531, 537, 105 S.Ct. 3304, 3308, 87 L.Ed.2d 381 (1985); emphasis added). 54 O'Connor states that for Fourth Amendment purposes  '... [w]hat is reasonable depends on the context within which the search takes place.'  Id. at 719, 107 S.Ct. at 1498 (emphasis added); (quoting T.L.O. at 337, 105 S.Ct. at 740). O'Connor continues by explaining: 55 A determination of the standard of reasonableness applicable to a particular class of searches requires 'balanc[ing] the nature and quality of the intrusion on the individual's Fourth Amendment interests against the importance of the governmental interests alleged to justify the intrusion.' [citation] In the case of searches conducted by a public employer, we must balance the invasion of the employees' legitimate expectations of privacy against the government's need for supervision, control, and the efficient operation of the workplace. Id. at 719-20, 107 S.Ct. at 1498-99 (emphasis added). 56 .... 57 ... [P]ublic employer intrusions on the constitutionally protected privacy interests of government employees ... should be judged by the standard of reasonableness under all the circumstances. Id. at 725, 107 S.Ct. at 1502 (emphasis added). 58 Dr. Pierce relies on Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979). There, Prouse was indicted for illegal possession of marihuana seized from the car he was riding in when it was stopped by a Delaware police officer who thereafter observed the marihuana in plain view on the car floor. The patrolman stopping the vehicle had observed neither traffic or equipment violation nor any suspicious activity, and made the stop only in order to check the driver's license and registration; he was not acting pursuant to any standards, guidelines, or procedures pertaining to document spot checks, promulgated by either his department or the State Attorney General. Id. at 650, 99 S.Ct. at 1394. The only reason given for the stop was  'I saw the car in the area and wasn't answering any complaints, so I decided to pull them off.'  Id. The state trial court granted Prouse's motion to suppress the marihuana, finding the stop and detention to have been wholly capricious and therefore violative of the Fourth Amendment. Id. This ruling was affirmed by the Delaware Supreme Court and, ultimately, by the Supreme Court of the United States. The Court observed that it had only recently considered the legality of investigative stops of automobiles where the officers ... have neither probable cause to believe nor reasonable suspicion that either the automobile or its occupants are subject to seizure under applicable criminal laws. Id. at 655, 99 S.Ct. at 1397 (emphasis added). It analogized the case before it to United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 U.S. 873, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975), where the Court had rejected the assertion that Border Patrol agents conducting roving patrols ... near the international border could constitutionally stop at random any vehicle in order to determine whether it contained illegal aliens or was involved in smuggling, and had held that such stops were valid only if based on the reasonable suspicion required for a Terry stop. Prouse at 655, 99 S.Ct. at 1397. The Court noted that both stops such as that in Prouse and those in Brignoni-Ponce generally entail law enforcement officers  exhibiting a possibly unsettling show of authority. Prouse at 657, 99 S.Ct. at 1398 (emphasis added). This was contrasted to the fixed checkpoint stops, upheld in Martinez-Fuerte, where all vehicles are brought to a halt or a near halt, and all are subjected to a show of the police power and  'the motorist can see that other vehicles are being stopped, he can see visible signs of the officers' authority, and he is much less likely to be frightened or annoyed by the intrusion.'  Prouse at 657, 99 S.Ct. at 1398. The Court went on to hold violative of the Fourth Amendment subjecting every occupant of every vehicle on the roads to a seizure ... at the unbridled discretion of law enforcement officials. Id. at 661, 99 S.Ct. at 1400 (emphasis added). It explained that absent reasonable suspicion that the driver is unlicensed or his vehicle unregistered ... we cannot conceive of any legitimate basis upon which a patrolman could decide that stopping a particular driver for a spot check would be more productive than stopping any other driver. Id. The Court observed that it did not preclude other spot checks that involve less intrusion or that do not involve the unconstitutional exercise of discretion, and concluded we hold only that persons in automobiles on public roadways may not for that reason alone have their travel and privacy interfered with at the unbridled discretion of police officers. Id. at 663, 99 S.Ct. at 1401 (emphasis added). 59 Though Prouse is doubtless somewhat supportive of Dr. Pierce's contentions, we conclude that it does not suffice to clearly establish that in the present context her Fourth Amendment rights were violated unless Drs. Smith and Binder had such reasonable suspicion that she was using drugs as would be required for a law enforcement Terry stop where the only concern is that the person stopped may then have illegal drugs. 60 To begin with, as Prouse states over and over, it is a law enforcement stop by police case. That is certainly not this case. And that makes a real difference, as explained in O'Connor: 61 Even when employers conduct an investigation, they have an interest substantially different from 'the normal need for law enforcement.' [citation] Public employers have an interest in ensuring that their agencies operate in an effective and efficient manner, and the work of these agencies inevitably suffers from the inefficiency, incompetence, mismanagement, or other work-related misfeasances of its employees. Indeed, in many cases, public employees are entrusted with tremendous responsibility, and the consequences of their misconduct or incompetence to both the agency and the public interest can be severe. In contrast to law enforcement officials, therefore, public employers are not enforcers of the criminal law; instead, public employers have a direct and overriding interest in ensuring that the work of the agency is conducted in a proper and efficient manner. Id. at 724, 107 S.Ct. at 1501. 62 O'Connor goes on to state: We hold, therefore, that public employer intrusions on the constitutionally protected privacy interests of government employees ... should be judged by the standard of reasonableness under all the circumstances. Id. at 725, 107 S.Ct. at 1502. O'Connor then expressly declines to decide whether individualized suspicion is an essential element of the standard of reasonableness we adopt today. Id. As the O'Connor search was not pursuant to any general policy, and as O'Connor was decided after Prouse, Prouse cannot have clearly established what Dr. Pierce contends it did. 63 Further, in Prouse the Court stressed that there was nothing which distinguished the vehicle stopped from any other vehicle on the highway. In Skinner, however, the Court sustained a regulation giving railroad officials discretion to select particular employees for drug testing, without individualized suspicion of drug use, provided they had been involved in certain operating rule violations, including noncompliance with a sign and excessive speeding. Id. at 611, 109 S.Ct. at 1410. Similarly, in Martinez-Fuerte, all vehicles had to go through the fixed checkpoint, but most went through without any oral inquiry or close visual examination, being barely stopped or allowed to merely 'roll' slowly through the checkpoint. Id. at 547 & n. 1, 96 S.Ct. at 3078 & n. 1. In a relatively small number of cases, vehicles were required to proceed to a secondary inspection area, where their occupants are asked about their citizenship and immigration status and at which the average length of an investigation was three to five minutes. Id. at 547, 96 S.Ct. at 3078. 15 The Court held the selective reference to the secondary inspection area did not have to be made on the basis of any articulable, individualized suspicion. Id. at 547, 561-62, 96 S.Ct. at 3078, 3085. Obviously, the intrusion selectively suffered by occupants of the less than one percent of vehicles at the checkpoint which were referred to secondary was far greater than that undergone by all the other vehicles which merely barely stopped or rolled slowly through the checkpoint without any oral inquiry or close visual examination. Nevertheless, the Court concluded that [a]s the intrusion here is sufficiently minimal ... no particularized reason need exist to justify the referral to secondary. Id. at 563, 96 S.Ct. at 3085. 64 Moreover, the presence of a testing policy would not have materially ameliorated the situation from the point of view of one in Dr. Pierce's position. Following Skinner and Martinez-Fuerte, a presumably permissible policy could have provided that a resident guilty of program misconduct sufficient to justify dismissal--as Dr. Pierce surely was--could, in the discretion of the supervisory program officials as part of their evaluation of whether the underlying misconduct should result in the dismissal of the particular resident, be directed to provide the results of a urine drug test in connection with a psychological evaluation, with the penalty for the underlying misconduct to be dismissal in the event of refusal to furnish the test results. While such a policy would have given Dr. Pierce advance notice that a drug test might be required if she engaged in dismissable program misconduct, the penalty for not providing the drug analysis would simply be that the underlying misconduct would be penalized by dismissal as it could have been whether or not a test was requested and refused, a matter common sense would adequately notify Dr. Pierce of. And, under such a policy, there would be no more discretion than in Skinner for discretionary tests for rules violations or in Martinez-Fuerte for discretionary referral to secondary inspection. 65 We conclude that in a situation of this character--a non-law enforcement, employer-school search where there are very special needs and the intrusiveness of the search and the subject's privacy interests are minimal--there is not now, and was not in March 1990, any clearly established Fourth Amendment requirement for either an existing general search policy or individualized suspicion of the type required for a law enforcement Terry stop for drug possession. This is not to say that there must not be some legitimate reason for the individual being singled out. 16 The search must be reasonable under all the circumstances, balancing the individual's privacy interests against the interests of the governmental institution.