Court Opinion

ID: 9626300
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:07:54.398923+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:00:08.910244
License: Public Domain

Utter, J.
(concurring) — I concur with the majority opinion's reasoning and its conclusion that the general preventive, disciplinary search of student luggage prior to the school band trip violated the students' Fourth Amendment rights. School and parent chaperons, however, are not powerless to protect against contraband on a trip while still respecting the constitutional rights of the students.
To avoid the constraints imposed by the Fourth Amendment, a search must be private, not one initiated by or enforced by the school or those acting as its agents. The school, in this case, could have asked parents or guardians to verify in writing that their child's luggage contained no contraband. Had the search initiated with the parent chaperons rather than with the band class, school-related booster club and band leader, had it been enforced by parents rather than the school, and had the trip not been a school sponsored trip, announced in the school bulletin and supervised by a school agent, the search by the chaperons would have been a private search. However, under the circumstances of the present case, the Fourth Amendment must apply since the search was not private.
Pearson, J., concurs with Utter, J.