Court Opinion

ID: 9486736
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:58:14.625569+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:54.156169
License: Public Domain

REINHARDT, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
Although I am in complete agreement with the reasoning and the result in Judge Fernandez’s opinion for the court, I write separately to emphasize that while our opinion holds expressly that Vernonia School District’s drug testing policy is violative of Article I, Section 9 of the Oregon Constitution, it also necessarily holds that the policy violates the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Indeed, the opinion cannot be read otherwise: there is no way to “avoid” a federal constitutional holding in this case, because Article I, Section 9 and the Fourth Amendment are textually identical and are interpreted “eoextensively.” Moreover, our decision is based almost exclusively on the application of federal law. Under the circumstances, our holding cannot be confined to one of Oregon law.
Generally, federal courts will avoid federal constitutional issues when the alternative ground of decision is one of state statutory or constitutional law. Hewitt v. Joyner, 940 F.2d 1561, 1565 (9th Cir.1991) (state “no [religious] preference” clause, rather than dissimilar religion clauses of First Amendment, held proper ground for decision). Where, however, a question involves identical or “coextensive” state and federal constitutional provisions, a holding based on state
*1528constitutional law does not “avoid” answering the federal question as well. As both Oregon law and Judge Fernandez’s opinion for the court make clear, Article I, Section 9 and the Fourth Amendment are textually “coextensive” and are interpreted identically.1 See State v. Flores, 280 Or. 273, 279-81, 570 P.2d 965, 968-69 (1977) (“[TJhere is no reason, based on either the text or the history of Article I, Sec. 9, to suppose that that section has a different meaning from the Fourth Amendment.”). Therefore, a decision on the meaning of Article I, Section 9 is by necessity also a decision on the meaning of the Fourth Amendment. Any attempt to limit our decision to Article I, Section 9 would be sheer flim-flammery.
We acknowledged this simple fact in Los Angeles County Bar Ass’n v. Eu, 979 F.2d 697, 705 n. 4 (9th Cir.1992). In Eu, we held that the right to access to the courts provided in the California Constitution and the Fourteenth Amendment were coextensive and decided plaintiffs right-to-access claim under the federal provision. The Supreme Court, without any analysis, adopted the same approach in Wisconsin v. Constantineau, 400 U.S. 433, 91 S.Ct. 507, 27 L.Ed.2d 515 (1971). In Constantineau, the Court struck down a Wisconsin statute on the basis of federal due process without addressing the dissent’s assertion that an identical due process provision of the Wisconsin Constitution was sufficient to dispose of the case.
Interestingly, Chief Justice Lucas of the California Supreme Court has suggested that state courts, when faced with complex and sensitive constitutional questions implicating coextensive state and federal provisions, should defer decision on the state provision in favor of the federal one. See Sands v. Moronga Unified School Dist., 53 Cal.3d 863, 281 Cal.Rptr. 34; 809 P.2d 809 (1991) (en banc) (religious invocation and benedictions at public high school violate coextensive clauses of the federal and California Constitutions). Such deferral, Justice Lucas explained, would invite early review of the state court’s decision by the United States Supreme Court, the “primary interpreter and protector of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights....” Id. 281 Cal.Rptr. at 59, 809 P.2d at 834-35 (Lucas, J., concurring). I point this out because if Justice Lucas is correct, and we were to attempt to base our holding solely on Article I, Section 9, we would be faced with the anomalous situation wherein state courts avoid state constitutional questions but freely reach sensitive federal constitutional questions while federal courts avoid federal constitutional questions in favor of resolution on the basis of coextensive state constitutional provisions. That would make even less sense than many of the other contortions in which we engage in our continuing effort to avoid doing justice by relying on arcane procedural precepts.
The process is not as simple as Chief Justice Lucas suggests, however. State courts are free to give broader meaning to state constitutional provisions with similar language, so long as they are relying on state law and not just on their interpretations of federal cases. They may give a more expansive protection to individual rights, but not a lesser one. In any event, this is not that type of case. There is as yet no independent Oregon determination of the status of drug testing under Article I, Section 9. Lacking such guidance, we are obliged to refer to federal law, specifically to federal judicial construction of the Fourth Amendment.
In any event, there are good commonsense reasons why we are unable to avoid a federal decision in this case. Even without the guidance of Eu and Constantineau, it seems like*1529ly that the identical plain language of the Fourth Amendment and Article I, Section 9 will result in similar interpretation. It is true that in the future the Oregon courts could choose to interpret Article I, Section 9 to provide more protection than the Fourth Amendment against random, suspicionless drug searches. As stated above, however, there are as yet no Oregon cases that apply Article I, Section 9 to the question of drug testing. Hence, as Judge Fernandez’s opinion correctly states, we are unable to interpret Article I, Section 9 without “a federal compass”; i.e., we have only Fourth Amendment jurisprudence to guide our analysis. Therefore, we first are obliged to clarify the extent of the Fourth Amendment restraint on random drug searches. Toward that end, we determine that the Vernonia School District’s random, suspieionless drug testing policy for interseholastie athletes is inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment. Equipped with our “federal compass,” we also determine that the policy is inconsistent with Article I, Section 9. As Judge Fernandez’s opinion clearly shows, we could not have reached our conclusion regarding Article I, Section 9 without first holding that the school district’s policy violates the Fourth Amendment.

. The Fourth Amendment reads:
The right of the people to be secure in their person, 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. Article I, section 9 of the Oregon Constitution provides:
No law shall violate the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search or seizure; and no warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or thing to be seized.