Court Opinion

ID: 9658926
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 21:22:25.44774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:14:01.714157
License: Public Domain

N. PATRICK CROOKS, J.
¶ 68. (concurring). I agree with the test for true threats in the majority opinion, the application thereof, and, the resulting reversal of the court of appeals' decision. I write separately, however, to emphasize that our decision today should not be interpreted, by anyone, as imposing a limitation upon a school's ability to discipline its students.
[B]y and large, "public education in our Nation is committed to the control of state and local authorities," and that federal courts should not ordinarily "intervene in the resolution of conflicts which arise in the daily operation of school systems." Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., 393 U.S. 503, 507 (1969), noted that we have "repeatedly emphasized. . .the comprehensive authority of the States and of school officials. . .to prescribe and control conduct in the schools."
Board of Educ. v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853, 864 (1982) (plurality opinion) (also quoting Epperson v. Arkansas, 393 U.S. 97, 104 (1968)). This quotation applies to state courts as well as federal courts.
¶ 69. A school can, and should, discipline a student for speech and conduct that is inappropriate and disruptive, and in no way adds to the school's educational mission. This is particularly true here, where the setting is an elementary school.
*250[T]he potential "verbal cacophony" of a public forum can be antithetical to the delicate "custodial and tutelary" environment of an elementary school. The cultivation of the "habits and manners of civility" that [Bethel School Dist. v. Fraser, 478 U.S. 675, 681 (1986)] held "essential to a democratic society," can require a level of parent-like guidance that has no place in a public forum.
Muller v. Jefferson Lighthouse School, 98 F.3d 1530, 1539 (7th Cir. 1996) (other citations omitted).
¶ 70. I also write separately to express my concerns with the dissenting opinion. I have two overriding concerns. First, I am concerned with the dissent's reliance upon matters that are not in the record, including information about Douglas D. and his family, as well as letters, articles and reports from various sources regarding school violence. This court has not taken, and cannot take, judicial notice of much of this information. "A judicially noticed fact must be one not subject to reasonable dispute in that it is either (a) generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court or (b) capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned." Wis. Stat. § 902.01(2). Moreover, we have established that where a court or a party desires to take judicial notice of a matter, notice should be given to the parties or the adversary, "so as to afford them an opportunity of consulting the same sources or of producing others." State v. Barnes, 52 Wis. 2d 82, 88, 187 N.W.2d 845 (1971) (quoting Fringer v. Venema, 26 Wis. 2d 366, 373, 132 N.W.2d 565, 133 N.W.2d 809 (1965)). "A party is entitled upon timely request to an opportunity to be heard as to the propriety of taking judicial notice and the tenor of the matter noticed." Wis. Stat. § 902.01(5). Without such a proce*251dural safeguard, matters that are actually in dispute may be relied upon as if they were established fact.
¶ 71. Along a similar vein, the dissent relies upon non-legal materials as if they were legal authority. Here, the law — the United States and Wisconsin Constitutions, related statutes, and the cases interpreting them — provides sufficient authority to decide this case. The dissent's dependence upon non-legal material, which may not be accurate or reliable, undermines the dissent's conclusions, and the public's perception that this court relies upon sound legal principles.
¶ 72. My second concern with the dissent is that it implies that the majority has suppressed relevant information. The information the dissent apparently refers to, using blanks and brackets, is from confidential material — specifically, a dispositional report — contained in Douglas D.'s juvenile record. There is nothing to indicate that the report was relied upon by the circuit court, or the court of appeals, in reaching the decision we review today.
¶ 73. A juvenile's record is confidential, and should remain so, in most instances. See Wis. Stat. § 938.78. The dispositional report is not prepared until a juvenile has been adjudged delinquent. Wis. Stat. § 938.33(1). The dispositional report is prepared for the dispositional hearing, much like a pre-sentence report is prepared prior to sentencing in an adult criminal proceeding. See Wis. Stat. §972.15. Here, the circuit court judge reached the decision at issue before receiving this report — indeed even before scheduling the dispositional hearing — and thus could not have relied upon the dispositional report. The dissent's suggestion that the circuit court judge relied upon an earlier dispo-sitional report, prepared in connection with an entirely *252separate proceeding (see ¶ 98), in reaching his decision here is nothing short of speculation.
¶ 74. The authority of schools to discipline students for behavior that is inappropriate and disruptive is not limited by our opinion today. However, that authority should not be improperly bolstered by referring to confidential material and relying upon questionable authority not in the record, as is done by the dissent. For these reasons, I respectfully concur with the majority.
¶ 75. I am authorized to state that Justice JON P. WILCOX joins this concurrence.