Court Opinion

ID: 9851287
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:09:57.320497+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:53.053383
License: Public Domain

BIRD, C. J., Concurring and Dissenting.
I write separately to express my
own views on this important issue.
I.
I cannot join in the abandonment of traditional Fourth Amendment analysis which today’s majority opinion embraces. Both the balancing test employed by my colleagues and the “reasonable suspicion” standard which they ultimately enunciate are at odds with well-established search and seizure doctrine.
This court should, under the state constitutional search and seizure provision (art. I, § 13), adhere to the standard of probable cause in the school setting. The reasonable suspicion standard should be the standard only where the intrusion by the school official falls substantially short of a full-scale search or seizure. (See Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1 [20 L.Ed.2d 889, 88 S.Ct. 1868]; In re Tony C. (1978) 21 Cal.3d 888 [148 Cal.Rptr. 366, 582 P.2d 957].)
As Justice William Brennan so aptly observed in his dissent in New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985) 469 U.S. 325, 357 [83 L.Ed.2d 720, 745, 105 S.Ct. 733, 752], to “cast aside the constitutional probable-cause standard when assessing the constitutional validity of a schoolhouse search ... on the basis of [a] Rohrschach-like ‘balancing test[]’ . . . represents a sizable innovation in Fourth Amendment analysis.
“This innovation finds support neither in precedent nor policy and portends a dangerous weakening of the purpose of the Fourth Amendment to protect the privacy and security of our citizens. Moreover, even if this Court’s historic understanding of the Fourth Amendment were mistaken and a balancing test of some kind were appropriate, any such test that gave adequate weight to the privacy and security interests protected by the Fourth Amendment would not reach the preordained result [of reasonableness which] the Court’s conclusory analysis reaches today.” I stand with Justice *569Brennan’s view. I would require the search in this case to be evaluated under the probable cause standard.
II.
I recognize full well that Justice Brennan’s position was rejected by the majority in T.L.O. and is rejected by today’s majority in favor of a “reasonable suspicion” standard. It is gratifying that in enunciating that standard, my colleagues require that reasonable suspicion be directed toward a specific student. (Majority opn., ante, at p. 564.)
A rule requiring individualized suspicion discourages searches of a group, class, or entire student body where the school official has reasonable suspicion that there has been a violation of the law but is unable to focus that suspicion on a particular individual. The constitutional rights of the many do not automatically disappear simply because there are reasonable grounds for violating the constitutional fights of one. “Our state and federal Constitutions were written precisely to outlaw . . . unrestricted general sweeps and searches.” (People v. Aldridge (1984) 35 Cal.3d 473, 480 [198 Cal.Rptr. 538, 674 P.2d 240].)
An “individualized suspicion” rule is fully consistent with the philosophy of the detention cases (Aldridge, supra, 35 Cal.3d 473; People v. Loewen (1983) 35 Cal.3d 117 [196 Cal.Rptr. 846, 672 P.2d 436]; In re Tony C., supra, 21 Cal.3d 888) on which the majority opinion bases its holding. (Majority opn., ante, at p. 564.) Those decisions require that a temporary detention be based on evidence that activity relating to crime has taken place or is occurring or about to occur, and that “the person [whom the officer] intends to stop or detain is involved in that activity. ” (Id., at p. 893, italics added.) Thus, the doctrinal underpinnings of the “reasonable suspicion” standard enunciated today provide ample response to this very important question.
Moreover, although the T.L.O. court declined to decide this question, it hinted strongly that individualized suspicion would be required even under the Fourth Amendment. “Exceptions to the requirement of individualized suspicion are generally appropriate only where the privacy interests implicated by a search are minimal and where ‘other safeguards’ are available ‘to assure that the individual’s reasonable expectation of privacy is not “subject to the discretion of the official in the field.” ’ [Citation.]” (T.L.O., supra, 469 U.S. at p. 342, fn. 8 [83 L.Ed. at p. 735, 105 S.Ct. at p. 744].)
The need for such a rule is poignantly demonstrated by a school search conducted only 10 days after the decision in T.L.O. was announced. This incident was described by Nat Hentoff in a recent article in the Village *570Voice. (Hentoff, The Day the Girls of Elyria Were Strip-Searched (June 18, 1985) The Village Voice, at p. 25.)
After finishing first-period gym class at the Westwood Junior High School in Elyria, Ohio, one of the girls in the class told her teacher that her watch and ring—which she thought she had left in the locker room—were missing. Acting on what the school superintendent would later claim was “ ‘reasonable deliberation of the critical issues at hand,’ ” the gym teacher proceeded to search the lockers and purses of each of the 20 girls in the class, without success. Two other female school officials then joined the gym teacher in conducting a body search of each student, again without producing the stolen goods. The local newspaper criticized the action, observing that “ ‘. . . Theft is serious business—but to ask 20 girls to take off most of their clothing in the hope that one guilty party will be found, goes beyond common sense, and is an affront to the innocent. . . .’” (Id., at p. 25, col. 3.) The requirement of individualized suspicion may very well prevent such offensive intrusions from occurring on our school campuses.
In this case, even though Lorenz had an individualized suspicion, it is clear that his search of William’s calculator case was predicated on neither probable cause nor reasonable suspicion. Therefore, the evidence seized was erroneously admitted and the order of wardship cannot stand. For this reason, I concur.