Opinion ID: 1315729
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Qualified Immunity/Constitutional Violations

Text: In their argument to the district court on summary judgment, defendants asserted that Assistant Principal Lacey did not violate the Fourth or Fifth Amendments. These arguments were not addressed by the district court. As noted above, following oral argument, the district court entered a brief order granting all of the individual defendants qualified immunity. In its later Opinion and Order on the motion for summary judgment, where it found that Heck required dismissal of Counts IV, V, VI, and IX, the court specifically expresse[d] no opinion on whether the Assistant Principal was acting as an agent of the police to the degree that he was required to administer Miranda warnings to the minor plaintiff or on the Fourth Amendment claims. We may consider an alternative ground for granting summary judgment to defendants, if it is fairly presented by the record, as long as the opposing party `is not denied an opportunity to respond to the new theory.' Graoch Assocs. # 33, L.P. v. Louisville/Jefferson County Metro Human Relations Comm'n, 508 F.3d 366, 371 (6th Cir.2007) (citing Herm v. Stafford, 663 F.2d 669, 684 (6th Cir.1981)). As defendants note, the arguments that constitutional violations did not occur were included in their summary judgment pleadings, and plaintiffs addressed the arguments at that juncture and in their briefs on appeal. We agree with defendants that Lacey's actions did not constitute violations of either the Fourth or Fifth Amendments. Although plaintiffs contend that A.E. was improperly seized on August 11, 2005, for the sole purpose of coercing her confession to be used in juvenile court proceedings, this is not borne out by the record. Both parties have cited to the landmark case of New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 105 S.Ct. 733, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985), where the Supreme Court recognized that public school students' rights under the Fourth Amendment are not as broad as those of the public. T.L.O. dealt with the search of a student's possessions for cigarettes, which led to the school official's discovery of marijuana. The Supreme Court found the search was proper, stating that the legality of a search of a student should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search. Id. at 341, 105 S.Ct. 733. Plaintiffs point to the distinction drawn in T.L.O. between a search carried out by school authorities acting alone, and those done in conjunction with or at the behest of law enforcement, Id. at n. 7 (citing Picha v. Wielgos, 410 F.Supp. 1214, 1219-21 (N.D.Ill.1976)), and assert that Lacey was acting in conjunction with law enforcement in taking the actions he did. Plaintiffs argue that Lacey acted in conjunction with or at the behest of police within the meaning of T.L.O. and Picha. They point to the facts that Lacey reported the incident to law enforcement (as required by Kentucky statute [5] and Grant County Board of Education Policy) and that Lacey took A.E.'s statement or confession because he knew that Officer Osborne had not interviewed A.E. over the course of the summer after the events of May 26, 2005 had occurred. [6] Plaintiffs also emphasize that the confession elicited by Lacey was never placed in A.E.'s school file, but was only taken for purposes of prosecution, and that A.E.'s suspension did not occur until at least a week after the confession. Their position is that Lacey took the statement in lieu of and in conjunction with law enforcement, implying that Lacey (1) believed less stringent standards applied to his actions than those of law enforcement officers, and (2) had the goal of making an end-run around A.E.'s constitutional rights. Defendants quote from Deputy Osborne's deposition testimony concerning school officials' collection of statements from students: Q: But your statement was that you have the principals collect statements for you and then you take them and run with A: Well, they don't collect them for me. They collect them for their school things, and then I take the copies of the statement and do the criminal end. Lacey testified at deposition that he did not talk to Deputy Osborne prior to collecting the students' statements. Defendants have cited to numerous federal and state court decisions holding that the sharing of the results of rule violation investigations with law enforcement did not make the school officials agents of law enforcement. [7] Defendants' position is that the plaintiffs' evidence does not create a question of material fact that constitutional violations occurred. [A] school official may detain a student if there is a reasonable basis for believing that the pupil has violated the law or a school rule. Wofford v. Evans, 390 F.3d 318, 326 (4th Cir.2004). There is no dispute that such a violation occurred here. That detention must be `reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified [it] in the first place.' Id. at 326-27 (citing T.L.O., 469 U.S. at 341, 105 S.Ct. 733) (quoting Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 20, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968)). Each case, and the reasonableness of the actions taken by school officials, turns on its particular facts. Here, we find that (1) plaintiffs have not produced sufficient evidence to support the claim that Lacey was acting at the behest of law enforcement when he asked plaintiff S.E. to write a statement, or her side of the story, concerning the events of May 26, 2005; and (2) the detention was otherwise reasonable. In this case, a school's assistant principal was contacted by the parent of a student regarding another student's violation of school rules on the final day of the school year. Weeks later, school was again in session, and nothing had been done over the summer break to redress that violation. Summoning the girls to his office to take their respective information about what transpired the previous May, particularly in light of the fact that Officer Osborne had been sick and had not performed the task, does not rise to the level of a Fourth Amendment violation in our view. Concerning plaintiffs' Fifth Amendment claim, plaintiffs contend that Lacey conducted his August 2005 meeting with A.E. as an agent of the Grant County Sheriff's Office. Given our findings above, we conclude that Lacey's actions did not violate the Fifth Amendment, as under the circumstanceswhere Lacey was not acting at the behest of law enforcement, law enforcement officers were not present, and we have found Lacey's actions under the circumstances to be reasonablewe agree that he was not required to advise A.E. of her Miranda rights. See, e.g., Jarmon v. Batory, No. 94-0284, 1994 WL 313063 (E.D.Pa. June 29, 1994) (unpublished disposition) (citing Salazar v. Luty, 761 F.Supp. 45, 47 (S.D.Tex.1991); Pollnow v. Glennon, 594 F.Supp. 220, 224 (S.D.N.Y. 1984), aff'd, 757 F.2d 496 (2d Cir.1985); and Boynton v. Casey, 543 F.Supp. 995, 997 & n. 4 (D.Me.1982)). [8] The district court will be affirmed on this basis as to Counts IV, V, VI, and IX.