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Home » Legal » High School Civil Liberties Project » Search and Seizure
Teacher ACLU Fact Sheet SEARCH & SEIZURE LAWS IN SCHOOL Landmark Case - New Jersey v. T.L.O. 469 U.S. 325 (1985) The Constitutional Question To what extent are students protected by the 4th Amendment with regard to being searched while in school? Amendments Implicated 4th Amendment - Government can not violate "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures...” Backround On March 7, 1980 in Piscataway High School in Middlesex County, N.J. a teacher discovered two girls smoking in the bathroom. One of these girls was a fourteen-year-old freshman, T.L.O.. The teacher took the girls to the principal's office because smoking was prohibited in the school bathrooms. The girls met with the vice principal, Theodore Choplick. Upon being questioned, T.L.O.'s companion admitted that she had violated the rule, but T.L.O. continued to deny the accusation claiming that she did not smoke. After hearing T.L.O.'s denial, Mr. Choplick demanded to see her purse. In her purse he found a pack of cigarettes and accused her of lying. When he first looked into the purse he also noticed a package of cigarette rolling papers, which he immediately associated with marijuana use. He continued to search the purse. He obtained a small amount of marijuana, a pipe, empty trash bags, money, and an index card with names of people that owed T.L.O. money. Two letters also implicated her in drug dealing. Mr. Choplick notified the local police and T.L.O.'s mother. The police then obtained the evidence found by Choplick. T.L.O.'s mother took her to the police headquarters where T.L.O. admitted to selling marijuana in the high school. The state then brought delinquency charges in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Middlesex County against T.L.O. based on the evidence found by Mr. Choplick and the confession. T.L.O. moved to suppress the evidence found in her purse on the basis that the search violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. She also moved to suppress the confession in the basis that it was tainted by the allegedly unlawful search. The Decision The New Jersey Supreme Court ordered the suppression of the evidence found in T.L.O.'s purse. The United States Supreme Court however reversed that decision. The Court held that the search resulting in the discovery of the evidence of selling marijuana by T.L.O. was reasonable. Once T.L.O.’s purse was open, evidence of marijuana was in plain view, and Mr. Choplick was entitled to conduct a thorough search to determine the nature and extent of T.L.O.’s drug-related activities. Thus, the Court held that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures applied to searches conducted by public school official, but that this search was “reasonable” and thus constitutional. T.L.O. established the "reasonableness" standards for searches of school pupils by school personnel. There must be reasonable suspicion that a law or school rule has been violated and the search must be reasonable in its scope. Related Cases Zamora v. Pomeroy – 1981 The court ruled that a search without warrant of school lockers conducted by trained police dogs was reasonable under the Fourth amendment, even when no reasonable suspicion existed. State v. Moore – 1992 Upon a student’s report to a guidance counselor that another student possessed an illicit drug, an administrator searched a student’s book bag because the administrator had knowledge that the student had been previously disciplined for possession of a controlled substance. The “reasonable suspicion” standard was definitively demonstrated in this case. Web Links |
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