Busted At School

BUSTED AT SCHOOL—THE FIVE-BOOK SERIES

BUSTED AT SCHOOL

Volume 1

STUDENT DRUG VIOLATIONS—What The Courts Say

A Discussion Guide For Educators, Students and

Parents Containing 42 Actual Court Cases

Jim Cleary, Attorney/Author

Copyright 2013 by Jim Cleary. All rights reserved.

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Busted at School, Volume 1:

Student Drug Violations—What the Courts Say

A Discussion Guide For Educators, Students and Parents Containing 42 Actual Court Cases

By Jim Cleary

1. LAW: Criminal Law - Juvenile Offenders 2. LAW: Child Advocacy 3. LAW: Criminal Procedure

Cover design by Lewis Agrell

Interior design by Stephanie Martindale

Authority Publishing

11230 Gold Express Dr. #310-413

Gold River, CA 95670

800-877-1097

www.AuthorityPublishing.com

BUSTED AT SCHOOL

What The Courts Say: THE FIVE-BOOK SERIES

1. Busted At School: Student Drug Violations

2. Busted At School: Student Bullying, Threats, Weapons, Violence and Fighting

3. Busted At School: Student Free Speech—Internet Speech, Offensive Speech and Dress Codes

4. Busted At School: Searching Students’ Pockets, Purses, Cellphones, Backpacks, Lockers and Cars

5. Busted At School: 20 Common Code-of-Conduct Violations—Disruptive Behavior, Cheating, Plagiarism, Theft, Gang Activity, Bus Misconduct and More

The sixth volume will be a college textbook entitled, Suspended, Expelled and Busted at School. It will be based on the cases in the five books in the series.

Contents

Preface: BUSTED AT SCHOOL: The Five-Book

Discussion Guide Series

Introduction: Volume 1 – Student Drug Violations

Chapter 1: Tips Provided to School Officials about Student Involvement with Drugs

CASE: Searching Students at School: Smoking a Cigarette in the School Bathroom

CASE #1.1 – Anonymous Telephone Tip About Drugs

CASE #1.2 – Tip that Student Saw a Baggie of Marijuana Justified Search of Backpack, Shoes and Socks

CASE #1.3 – Student Crime Watch Group Reported Teen Selling Pot

CASE #1.4 – Anonymous Hotline Tip Too Vague

CASE #1.5 – School Did Not Have to Identify Informant Where 43 Pills Found in a Bic Pen

CASE #1.6 – Tip That Student Had Pot in his Pocket was Reliable

CASE #1.7 – Identities of Two Student Informants Not Disclosed in Expulsion Hearing for Drugs

CASE #1.8 – Police Informant Tip Used by School to Search for Ecstasy Pills

Chapter 2: Personal Searches—Pockets, Purses, Book Bags, Cell Phones and Strip Searches

CASE #2.1 – Strip Search of a Girl for Ibuprofen Pills

CASE #2.2 – Smelled a Strong Odor Of Marijuana and Searched his Pockets

CASE #2.3 – Returning to Campus at Midday with 44 Pills

CASE #2.4 – Student Appeared Under Influence, Pills In Backpack

CASE #2.5 – Tardiness To Class Justifies Both Backpack and Pocket Search, Revealing Drugs

CASE #2.6 – No School Identification Justifies Pat-down Search, Finding Drugs

Chapter 3: Searching Contents of Student Cell Phones

CASE #3.1 – Introduction Case: Student Text Messages about Drugs, February 2012

CASE #3.2 – The Marijuana-Laced Cookies

CASE #3.3 – The Large Marijuana Cigarette

Chapter 4: Locker and Vehicle Searches for Drugs

CASE #4.1 – Student Tip Justifies Searching a Student’s Locker and Car for Drugs

CASE #4-2 – Annual Winter Locker Cleanout Found Marijuana

CASE #4.3 – Tip Justified Searching Locker for Pot Without Student’s Consent Is Lawful

CASE #4.4 – Tip Student Was High Justified Locker Search Finding Brass Knuckles

CASE #4.5 – 80 Grams of Marijuana in the Trunk of a Student’s Car

CASE #4.6 – Marijuana, Cash and Oxycontin Found in Student’s Car

CASE #4.7 – Student Overheard Talking About Big Bags Justified Vehicle Search

Chapter 5: Dog Searches

CASE #5.1 – Dog Sniff of Vehicle for Drugs Reveals a Handgun

CASE #5.2 – Classroom Dog Sniff Alerts to Marijuana in a Student’s Backpack

Chapter 6: School Resource Officer Cases

CASE #6.1 – Teacher Thought Student was Under the Influence of Something Justified Pocket Search, Finding Pot

CASE #6.2 – Student Flashing Large Sums of Money Around Justified Pocket Search

CASE #6.3 – Search Finds Inhaler Containing Marijuana

CASE #6.4 – Removal of Student From Class by SRO Based on Anonymous Tip

Chapter 7: Random, Suspicion-less Drug Testing of Student Athletes and Students Involved in Extracurricular Activities

CASE #7.1 – Student Athletes and Random Drug Testing

CASE #7.2 – Students Participating in Extracurricular Activities and Drug Testing

Chapter 8: Students Suspended or Expelled from School for Drugs

CASE #8.1 – Search for Guns and Knives Finds Cocaine

CASE #8.2 – Teacher Smelled Marijuana Coming from Restroom

CASE #8.3 – A Suspension for Fighting Does Not Justify Drug Testing

CASE #8.4 – Banner Promoting Drug Use Confiscated at School-Sponsored Event

CASE #8.5 – Smoking Marijuana on a School Trip to a Bowling Alley

Chapter 9: School Policies and Procedures about Searching Students for Drugs

CASE #9.1 – Teacher Smelled Marijuana on Another Student

CASE #9.2 – Purse Search after a Fight Discovered Marijuana

CASE #9.3 – Teacher Could Not Remember Names of Student Informants

CASE #9.4 – Principal Saw a Student Fiddling with his Pocket and Another Student with Money in his Hand

CASE #9.5 – Search for Tagging Marker Finds Cocaine in a Student’s Wallet

CASE #9.6 – There’s Been a Lot of Drug Talk Around

Appendix

Resources for Parents

Table Of Cases

About the Author

Preface

BUSTED AT SCHOOL:

The Five-Book Discussion Guide Series

The Busted At School series consists of five books. They are discussion guides using actual court cases about students who have been suspended, expelled or criminally prosecuted for code-of-conduct violations at school. Each volume contains at least 40 actual court cases. The books are specifically designed for three groups: teachers, students and parents. Students in the cases get into trouble for having drugs at school (volume 1); bullying, harassment and threats (volume 2); posting negative comments on the internet about teachers and other free-speech issues (volume 3); the schools’ right to search student pockets, purses, backpacks, lockers and cars (volume 4); and what happens to students who are disruptive, cheat on tests, involved in gangs, start fights, verbally abusive and more (volume 5).

Jim Cleary is an attorney and author of the five-book series. He presents the cases in an easy-to-read format, free of legal jargon. Readers find out what happened to the students in these interesting cases. After each case, the book includes questions and discussion topics for each reader group. This discussion format helps all readers (teachers, students and parents) to effectively learn from each case. The key feature of Cleary’s approach is it allows readers to learn from sharing with others what happened in the case.

Introduction

Volume 1 – Student Drug Violations

This book contains 42 actual court cases. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of drug violations. Even though students have privacy rights at school, they will see how school officials can legally search them for drugs. The book features students who have been suspended, expelled or prosecuted in juvenile court for possession, use or sale of drugs at school. It explains how schools can use tips about a student’s involvement with drugs to detain and question them, and use drug-sniffing dogs to look for drugs in student backpacks, lockers and cars. Readers will learn how schools can legally search a student’s pocket, purse, backpack, locker or car for drugs. The book explains how schools can search the contents of a student’s cell phone for evidence of drug involvement. Teachers will see what the courts say about school-district policies and procedures for handling various types of drug violations. The book provides parents with discussion topics based on the cases. In this way, both students and parents can effectively talk about choices the students in the cases made and the legal consequences of those choices.

How To Use This Book. After every case there is a section for each reader group: students, parents and teachers. For students there is a section on how the case affects them. For parents, suggested conversation topics are included for use in discussing the issues with their children. For teachers, take-away tips and a section on the legal bottom-line detail what the courts say about school-district policies and procedures on drugs. See below for details on each section.

The Law Stories Approach. Think of each of these easy-to-read court cases as law stories. Read and discuss them with each other both in person and online, using your favorite social media format.

Focus first on what happened to the students in each of these 42 cases. This is what the courts do and all readers can do the same thing. By discussing what happened to the students in the case, you will learn what the courts rule about various types of drug violations at school. This learn-by-discussion approach works for teachers, administrators, students and parents.

Students: How Does This Case Affect You? Remember—the choices you make about drugs can have legal consequences. This section for students follows each of the court cases. The idea behind this book is to help you to identify drug situations at school in advance. In this way, student readers can learn from the choices the students in the cases made, thereby avoiding the legal consequences imposed. Three things can happen to students who get involved with drugs at school: they can be suspended or expelled from school and prosecuted in juvenile court.

Parents and Students: A set of discussion topics follows each of the cases. Focus your discussion with your kids on the choices made by the students in the cases and the legal consequence that resulted from those choices. Discuss the consequences the students received for making those choices. Talk about the students in the case and the fact they were suspended, expelled or prosecuted in juvenile court.

Take-away Tips for Teachers and Administrators on Policies and Procedures. This section follows each of the 42 cases. Don’t worry about the law, but focus on what the school in the case did or failed to do. In this way, you will learn to be more effective under your school policy when handling drug situations. In most of these cases the court approved suspending, expelling or prosecuting the student. However, in some cases the court ruled the school district crossed the legal line and violated the student’s Fourth Amendment privacy rights. Chapter 9 presents cases in which the courts did not approve the way the school handled the drug situation.

The Legal Bottom Line for School Officials. This section follows each of the cases and gives school officials key points to consider when discussing policies and procedures.

Online Continuing Education Courses for Teachers. At www.BustedAtSchool.com, Jim Cleary offers online continuing education courses on student drug violations for K-12 teachers. The one-hour self-study/self-paced courses are offered through a university, so teachers can obtain academic credit. Four courses based on each book in the five-volume Busted At School series are available, for a total of 20 courses. Teachers can take four online continuing education courses on each of the five topics: student drug violations; bullying and threats; student free-speech violations; student search-and-seizure issues; and general code-of-conduct violations such as disruptive behavior, cheating, bus misconduct, prayer and religious issues. This is a comprehensive series for K-12 teachers, administrators and school resource officers.

The Online Resource: www.BustedAtSchool.com. This is the place to go for several things. First, give us your input on what topics you would like us to develop. Second, sign up for our free newsletter and find other information on the general topic of what the courts say about student code-of-conduct violations.

How This Book Series Came to be Written – Jim Cleary’s Background

The Busted At School series is an outgrowth of my first book on law for non-lawyers. That book was a 70,000-word hardcover volume entitled Prosecuting The Shoplifter—A Loss Prevention Strategy, published by Butterworths Publishers in Boston, MA in 1986 (ISBN 0-409-95116-1). It contained 78 actual court cases and used a discussion-guide format. It was a training guide for retail merchants on how to effectively handle a shoplifting case. I started my legal career as an Assistant City Prosecutor in the Municipal Court of Kansas City, Missouri. As part of my trial docket of cases each day, I handled shoplifting violations. The witnesses in those cases were typically store managers, sales employees, security and loss-prevention personnel from major national chains, malls and local stores. These retail employees had to deal with shoplifting cases every day. After leaving the prosecutor’s office, I wrote the book and designed a set of loss-prevention seminars called The Dual Legal Aspects of Handling Shoplifting Cases to help merchants more effectively handle shoplifting cases. As a side business to my law practice, I presented these seminars to retail merchants and spoke at national and state-level retail loss-prevention conferences around the country for 10 years. I also produced a 15-minute shoplifting loss-prevention training video for retail merchants, The Average Citizen Shoplifter.

This five-book series on court rulings about students who are suspended, expelled or criminally prosecuted for code-of-conduct violations is based on my experience with retail merchants. The case-discussion guide worked well for the retail industry. It will work equally well for teachers, students and parents who want to learn about the legal aspects of student code-of-conduct violations. Based on the content of this five-book series, I will produce five online teacher-training programs and five online student-learning courses for school districts. As mentioned, I will produce 20 online continuing education courses for K-12 teachers. For students and parents I will produce a series of five online educational games. With 10 years of experience presenting law for retail merchants, all the reader groups (teachers, students and parents) will benefit from my five-book series, teacher-training programs, student-learning courses and online educational games for students and parents.

Chapter 1

Tips Provided to School Officials about Student Involvement with Drugs

Introduction Case on Searching Students at School

CASE: Searching Students at School: Smoking a Cigarette in the School Bathroom

TLO v. New Jersey, U.S. Supreme Court (1985)

WHAT TYPE OF CASE: TLO was suspended from school for smoking cigarettes in the bathroom. She was also prosecuted in juvenile court for possession of marijuana at school. Her juvenile delinquency conviction for possession of marijuana was affirmed. The search of her purse that found drugs was ruled valid.

LEGAL ISSUE: After smelling cigarette smoke in the bathroom, school officials looked in her purse and saw a package of cigarettes. Then they searched her purse and found marijuana. Question: Did the purse search that found marijuana (after finding the cigarettes) violate her right against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment? Answer: no. The search of her purse that found the drugs did not violate her privacy rights so the conviction for drugs was upheld.

RESULT: TLO’s juvenile court conviction for marijuana possession was overturned by the New Jersey Supreme Court, saying the purse search violated her privacy rights. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed the New Jersey Supreme Court and reinstated TLO’s juvenile court conviction. The court held that her detention for smoking in the bathroom was based on reasonable suspicion that she was violating school rules or the law. It also ruled that searching her purse after seeing the cigarettes in it was reasonable in scope and legal because her purse was the logical place to look for drugs and other evidence of rule violations. Accordingly, the search that found the marijuana in her purse did not violate TLO’s privacy rights. Her conviction was affirmed.

THE FACTS—WHAT HAPPENED IN THIS CASE

In 1985 in the U.S. Supreme Court first dealt with searching students at school. Here a high school teacher caught a 14-year old girl smoking in the bathroom, along with a classmate, in violation of school rules. Under questioning from an assistant principal, the companion admitted smoking, but TLO denied she was smoking. Not believing TLO, the principal opened her purse and found a pack of cigarettes at the very top. He continued to search the purse, finding rolling papers, a hash pipe, a number of empty plastic bags, $40 in cash, an index card listing other students who owed TLO money, a small quantity of what turned out to be marijuana, and letters that implicated the student as a marijuana dealer. The principal called TLO’s mother, who drove her to the police station. She was suspended for three days for smoking cigarettes in a non-smoking area and seven days for possession of marijuana. Also she was charged with delinquency based on the finding of the marijuana in her purse and her confession. At the Juvenile Court hearing, TLO said the search of her purse violated her Fourth Amendment privacy rights, so the marijuana and her confession should not be used as evidence against her at trial. The Juvenile Court denied the request, admitted the evidence and found her delinquent. She appealed and the New Jersey Supreme Court reversed the Juvenile Court, ruling the evidence had been obtained in violation of her privacy rights. The State of New Jersey appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. That court ruled that the search of TLO’s purse did not violate her Fourth Amendment privacy rights, so the delinquency conviction was re-instated and she was found guilty of marijuana possession.

THE COURT RULING

The smell of cigarette smoke in the bathroom provided reasonable suspicion for school officials to detain, question and search TLO about a possible violation of either a school rule or a criminal law. The search of her purse that followed the detention was reasonable in scope because it was not excessively intrusive (such as a strip search) and it was limited in scope to a location (her purse), where cigarettes and other contraband (such as drugs) might be found. Finally, it was not a witch hunt into unrelated locations.

• In holding the search of TLO’s purse was lawful, the court noted that she has a legitimate expectation of privacy at school both in her person and in the possessions she carries with her. But, because public schools have a legal duty to maintain an environment safe for learning, students have a lesser expectation of privacy at school than do persons in non-school settings. This means courts balance the student’s right of privacy with the school’s duty to provide a safe environment.

• School officials are not law enforcement officers involved with crimes. Instead,