Court Opinion

ID: 9796350
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:56:06.553114+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:50:08.883588
License: Public Domain

HALL, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
¶ 35 I agree with my colleagues that the Arizona Constitution affords no greater protection against drug testing than does the Fourth Amendment. State v. Juarez, 203 Ariz. 441, 444, ¶ 14, 55 P.3d 784, 787 (App. 2002). Thus, I concur in section B of the majority opinion. I believe, however, that the City’s public safety interest in requiring firefighters .to submit to random, unannounced, and suspicionless drug testing does not outweigh Petersen’s Fourth Amendment “right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men.” Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 478, 48 S.Ct. 564, 72 L.Ed. 944 (1928) (Brandeis, J., dissenting). Therefore, I respectfully dissent from the majority’s holding that the City-compelled collection and testing of urine and breath is constitutionally reasonable.
¶ 36 The Fourth Amendment protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The Amendment safeguards the privacy, dignity, and security of persons against certain arbitrary and invasive acts by state officers, Skinner, 489 U.S. at 613-14, 109 S.Ct. 1402, even when the government is acting in its *287capacity as an employer, O’Connor v. Ortega, 480 U.S. 709, 717, 107 S.Ct. 1492, 94 L.Ed.2d 714 (1987) (plurality opinion). See also Camara v. Mun. Court of San Francisco, 387 U.S. 523, 528, 87 S.Ct. 1727, 18 L.Ed.2d 930 (1967) (“The basic purpose of this Amendment, as recognized in countless decisions of this Court, is to safeguard the privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials.”).
¶ 37 Because state-compelled collection and testing of urine “intrudes upon expectations of privacy that society has long recognized as reasonable,” Skinner, 489 U.S. at 617-18, 109 S.Ct. 1402, such intrusions are “searches” under the Fourth Amendment:
There are few activities in our society more personal or private than the passing of urine. Most people describe it by euphemisms if they talk about it at all. It is a function traditionally performed without public observation; indeed, its performance in public is generally prohibited by law as well as social custom.
Id. (quoting Nat’l Treasury Employees Union v. Von Raab, 816 F.2d 170, 175 (5th Cir.1987), aff'd in part, vacated in part, 489 U.S. 656, 109 S.Ct. 1384, 103 L.Ed.2d 685 (1989)).8 Not all governmental searches are proscribed by the Fourth Amendment, only those that are unreasonable. Skinner, 489 U.S. at 619, 109 S.Ct. 1402. Reasonableness “depends on all of the circumstances surrounding the search or seizure and the nature of the search or seizure itself.” Id. (quoting United States v. Montoya de Hernandez, 473 U.S. 531, 537, 105 S.Ct. 3304, 87 L.Ed.2d 381 (1985)).
¶38 The reasonableness of a particular search is determined, as my colleagues correctly state, by “balane[ing] the degree of the intrusion on individual privacy against the extent to which the intrusion promotes legitimate governmental interests.” Ante ¶ 15 (citing Skinner, 489 U.S. at 619, 109 S.Ct. 1402). Although the majority states the standard accurately, it then misapplies the standard by according too little significance to the degree to which random, unannounced, and suspicionless drug testing infringes on a person’s bodily integrity and human dignity and by characterizing the Policy as meeting a “compelling” safety need in the complete absence of any facts demonstrating any actual problem that would justify dispensing with the “right of the people to be secure in their persons.” U.S. Const, amend. IV.
¶ 39 Skinner does not support the imposition of a random, unannounced, and suspicionless drug-testing regimen for firefighters. First, as acknowledged by the majority, the testing at issue in Skinner was not random. Instead, a railroad employee, in the absence of any individualized suspicion, could only be tested if the employee was involved in a “triggering event” such as a train accident or incident, or a safety-rule violation. 489 U.S. at 609-11, 109 S.Ct. 1402. Second, the government’s interest in combating the documented incidence of drug and alcohol use by railroad employees presented “special needs” that overrode the right of a citizen to be protected against arbitrary governmental intrusions on his or her privacy and justified dispensing with the warrant requirement or need for individualized suspicion. Id. at 620, 109 S.Ct. 1402. The Court believed that a warrant, which assures a citizen subject to its reach that any intrusion on privacy is “narrowly limited in its objective and scope,” was unnecessary because “the circumstances justifying toxicological testing and the permissible limits of such intrusions [were] defined narrowly” in the policy. Id. at 622, 109 S.Ct. 1402. Further, “the delay necessary to procure a warrant [might] result in the destruction of valuable evidence” pertaining to an accident, incident, or rule violation. Id. at 622-23, 109 S.Ct. 1402.9
*288¶40 In contrast, the City’s Policy, which compels firefighters to submit to random testing without advance notice, requires no “justifying” triggering event. Although the City’s goals of both discerning and deterring drug use are laudable, it can hardly be claimed that these ends justify the means of dispensing with the warrant requirement or the need for reasonable suspicion in the absence of any triggering event, the immediacy of which in Skinner made it constitutionally “reasonable” to conduct drug testing without a warrant or reasonable suspicion that the particular employee was impaired. Id. at 631, 109 S.Ct. 1402.
¶41 Likewise, Von Raab provides only limited support for the majority’s conclusion that the Policy will not violate the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness requirement. As in Skinner, the drug tests performed on Customs employees in Von Raab were not random. Instead, only employees that had been accepted for promotion or transfer to one of three categories of covered positions were tested.10 Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 672 n. 2, 109 S.Ct. 1384. The Court identified several factors that it believed were sufficiently compelling to justify conducting suspicionless testing of employees who applied for promotion to positions directly involving the interdiction of illegal drugs or requiring the incumbent to carry a firearm:11 (1) “[t]he Customs Service is our Nation’s first line of defense against one of the greatest problems affecting the health and welfare of our population^” i.e., the “smuggling of illicit narcotics^]” (2) the exposure of Customs employees to drag traffickers and the controlled substances they seek to smuggle into the country create corresponding problems involving the safety and integrity of the employees, (3) the irreparable damage to the “national interest in self-protection” if drug users were not barred from positions involving the interdiction of illegal drugs, and (4) the public interest “demands effective measures to prevent the promotion of drug users to positions that require the incumbent to carry a firearm[.j” Id. at 668-70, 109 S.Ct. 1384 (internal quotations omitted). In concluding that the government’s compelling interest in waging the drug war and safeguarding our borders outweighed the privacy interests of the affected Customs employees, the Court emphasized that the requirement that employees be notified in advance of the scheduled sample collection reduced to a minimum any “unsettling show of authority” that may be associated with an unannounced intrusion on privacy, id. at 672 n. 2, 109 S.Ct. 1384 (quoting Delaware v. Prouse, 440 U.S. 648, 657, 99 S.Ct. 1391, 59 L.Ed.2d 660 (1979)), and “contribute^] significantly to dimmish the program’s intrusion on privacy^” id. at 676 n. 4, 109 S.Ct. 1384.
¶ 42 In comparison, the City’s Policy, which requires all firefighters to submit to random and unannounced testing, is both broader and more intrusive than the drug-screening program upheld in Von Raab. The majority’s interpretation of Von Raab, ante ¶21, as “justifying] searches ‘without any measure of individualized suspicion’” whenever the government’s purpose is to discover or deter drug use by employees, effectively enables the City to bootstrap its desire to combat a nonexistent drug problem into a “compelling” justification that trumps the legitimate privacy rights of its employees. Compare Beattie, 733 F.Supp. at 1458 (holding that drug testing of firefighters unjustified “[w]ithout some form of individualized suspicion or some compelling reason beyond a hypothetical future problem”). As stated in Skinner, the requirement of individualized suspicion may be jettisoned only in limited circumstances:
*289489 U.S. at 624, 109 S.Ct. 1402. More recently, in Chandler v. Miller, 620 U.S. 305, 309, 117 S.Ct. 1295, 137 L.Ed.2d 513 (1997), the Court characterized the narrow exception from the usual individualized suspicion requirement as a “closely guarded category of constitutionally permissible suspicionless searches.”
*288[W]here the privacy interests implicated by the search are minimal, and where an important governmental interest furthered by the intrusion would be placed in jeopardy by a requirement of individualized suspicion, a search may be reasonable despite the absence of such suspicion.
*289¶ 43 Unlike the majority, I do not believe the City’s symbolic need to portray its employees as being drug-free is the type of “special need” that justifies dispensing with traditional Fourth Amendment safeguards. Even if the special-needs exception presents as low of a hurdle as the City apparently believes,12 the blanket suspicionless searches at issue here are not reasonable means to protect society in the absence of any showing that public safety is actually in jeopardy. The majority’s observation that firefighters, “if impaired, place themselves, co-workers, and the public at grave risk[,]” ante ¶28, while accurate, is equally true of anyone who operates a motor vehicle on a public roadway while under the influence of intoxicants.
¶ 44 The majority also relies on the United States Supreme Court decisions in Vemonia and Earls, both of which addressed the constitutionality of suspicionless drug testing of students in public schools. Neither of these cases substantially supports the constitutionality of the City’s Policy. In Vernonia, the Supreme Court upheld a school district’s suspicionless drug testing of student athletes. 515 U.S. at 665, 115 S.Ct. 2386. In Earls, the Court, relying on Vemonia, upheld a drug-testing policy that required all students who participated in any extracurricular activity to submit to drug testing. 536 U.S. at -, 122 S.Ct. at 2562. In both cases, the Court repeatedly emphasized the unique nature of the public school environment, where the Fourth Amendment is interpreted more leniently with respect to searches. Earls, 536 U.S. at -, 122 S.Ct. at 2565 (“Fourth Amendment rights ... are different in public schools than elsewhere; the ‘reasonableness’ inquiry cannot disregard the schools’ custodial and tutelary responsibility for children.”) (quoting Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 656, 115 S.Ct. 2386); id. (“Central ... is the fact that the subjects of the Policy are (1) children, who (2) have been committed to the temporary custody of the State as schoolmaster.”) (quoting Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 654, 115 S.Ct. 2386); id. (“[W]hen the government acts as guardian and tutor the relevant question is whether the search is one that a reasonable guardian and tutor might undertake.”) (quoting Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 665, 115 S.Ct. 2386). Obviously, unlike a public school student, a firefighter’s right to privacy, although limited in some respects, is not inherently “subject! ] to greater controls than those appropriate for adults.” Id.
¶45 Unlike my colleagues, I have little trouble distinguishing the mandatory drug testing of students involved in extracurricular activities from the drug testing of firefighters pursuant to the Policy. The school districts in both Vemonia and Earls adopted their testing regimes in the face of a documented drug problem within their districts and against the background of a nationwide drug epidemic afflicting our children that “makes the war against drugs a pressing concern in every school.” Earls, 536 U.S. at -, 122 S.Ct. at 2567. Further, even though a history of pervasive drug use is not a prerequisite for the institution of suspicion-less drug testing, such evidence, which is lacking here, “shore[s] up” the need for a government drug-testing program. Id. at -, 122 S.Ct. at 2567-68 (quoting Chandler, 520 U.S. at 319, 117 S.Ct. 1295).
¶46 The majority’s reliance on Earls' is particularly problematic given that Justice Breyer, who joined in the 5-4 decision, wrote a separate concurrence emphasizing his reliance on the nondisciplinary nature of the testing program, which “preserves an option for a conscientious objector. He can refuse testing while paying a price (nonparticipation) that is serious, but less severe than expulsion from the school.” Id. at -, 122 S.Ct. at 2571. In contrast, pursuant to the City’s Policy, a firefighter who refuses to provide a urine sample on demand is auto*290matically terminated.13
¶ 47 Instead, I find persuasive the analysis in Anchorage Police Department, which involved an almost identical testing program to the one at issue here. In that case, the Supreme Court of Alaska held that the portion of the municipality’s substance abuse testing policy that required police and fire department employees to submit to random and unannounced testing violated the Alaska Constitution. 24 P.3d at 558. Applying the special-needs balancing test as articulated by the United States Supreme Court, the court first upheld the superior court’s finding that the municipality’s interest in ensuring public safety outweighed the privacy intrusion that occurs when the employees are subjected to suspicionless urine testing for job-related events, such as application for employment, promotion, demotion, transfer, or after a vehicular accident. Id. at 556-57. However, the court then concluded that the balance shifted in favor of individual privacy rights in the case of an indefinite requirement of random testing. Id. at 557.
¶ 48 In determining that the municipality failed to establish a special need for the random-testing component of its policy, the court cited three considerations. Id. First, the municipality’s random testing, which the court described as “a continuous and unrelenting government scrutiny that exposes the employee to unannounced testing at virtually any timey” placed increased demands on employees’ reasonable expectations of privacy. Id. at 557-58. Second, unannounced random testing is more intrusive and has a broader reach than testing triggered by predictable, job-related occurrences such as promotion or transfer. Id. at 558. Third, because random testing has no nexus to any job-related occurrence, it reduces the immediacy of the government’s need for suspicionless testing:
[I]n the absence of a documented history of substance abuse, then, the Municipality can claim no immediate, job-contextual need to know the results of a randomly drawn urinalysis; it can only claim a more attenuated institutional interest in checking.
Id. These same privacy considerations are magnified in the context of the City’s Policy, which requires that any “conscientious objector” be terminated from employment.
¶ 49 In summary, the majority’s conclusion that the City’s interests are sufficiently compelling to justify imposition of its random, unannounced, and suspicionless drug testing program is not supported by the relevant United States Supreme Court cases. Moreover, its application of the “special-needs” rationale to dispense with any requirement of particularized suspicion, even though there is no evidence in the record of any past or ongoing drug problem among the City’s firefighters, goes too far in eroding the Fourth Amendment protections enjoyed by all citizens. See Camara, 387 U.S. at 530, 87 S.Ct. 1727 (“It is surely anomalous to say that the individual and his private property are fully protected by the Fourth Amendment only when the individual is suspected of criminal behavior.”). Instead, I conclude that the City’s asserted special need to deter drug abuse, the incidence of which is hypothetical, does not outweigh Petersen’s right to be let alone absent individualized suspicion. Therefore, I would uphold the trial court’s grant of summary judgment and affirm its order en*291joining the City from implementing the random, suspicionless part of its Policy.

. Likewise, subjecting a person to the compelled production of alveolar or "deep lung” breath "implicates [ ] concerns about bodily integrity” and is deemed a search. Skinner, 489 U.S. at 617, 109 S.Ct. 1402.

. Justice O’Connor, who joined in the opinion, later described Skinner as being based “on the firm understanding that a requirement of individualized suspicion for testing train operators for drug or alcohol impairment following serious train accidents would be unworkable because ‘the scene of a serious rail accident is chaotic.’ ” Vernonia, 515 U.S. at 674-75, 115 S.Ct. 2386 (O’Connor, J., dissenting) (quoting Skinner, 489 U.S. at 631, 109 S.Ct. 1402).

. The covered positions were those that met one or more of three criteria: (1) direct involvement in drug interdiction or enforcement of related laws, (2) carrying a firearm, and (3) handling classified material. Von Raab, 489 U.S. at 660-61, 678, 109 S.Ct. 1384.

. The Court remanded the case to determine whether the third category was reasonably limited in scope. Id. at 678, 109 S.Ct. 1384.

. Among the positions identified by the City as safety-sensitive in the Policy are meter reader, paint striper, tire service worker, and customer service representative.

. Other cases cited by the majority are distinguishable because they: (1) do not address random drug testing, e.g., Witcher, 139 F.3d at 374 (firefighters consented to random drug testing in bargaining agreement with city); Saavedra, 73 F.3d at 1532 (testing of firefighters based on reasonable suspicion); Doe, 816 P.2d at 310 (urine routinely collected from firefighters and tested as part of their annual physical); (2) fail to conduct a careful analysis of the competing private and public interests, e.g., Hatley, 164 F.3d at 604 (summarily upholding random drug testing of firefighters); (3) interpret Supreme Court precedent in this area in a more limited manner than does the majority, e.g., Harmon, 878 F.2d at 490 (“Von Raab [ ] suggests that the government may search its employees only when a clear, direct nexus exists between the nature of the employee's duty and the nature of the feared violation.”); or (4) uphold suspicionless searches conducted in response to risks to public safety that are substantial and real, e.g., Cheney, 884 F.2d at 610-12 (suspicionless random testing of civilians employed by military in aviation and police functions); Rushton, 844 F.2d at 567 (engineers at nuclear power plants); see also United States v. Edwards, 498 F.2d 496, 500 (2d Cir.1974) (search of passengers and baggage before boarding commercial airliners).