Com. v. Cass

• Decision Date: 07 January 1998
• Parties: , 125 Ed. Law Rep. 705 COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Vincent Francis CASS, Appellee.
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Page 350

709 A.2d 350

551 Pa. 25, 125 Ed. Law Rep. 705

COMMONWEALTH of Pennsylvania, Appellant, v. Vincent Francis CASS, Appellee.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

Argued Sept. 18, 1996.

Decided Jan. 7, 1998.

Joseph P. Conti, Christian A. Trabold, Erie, for Com.

James Pitonyak, Erie, for Vincent Cass.

Before FLAHERTY, C.J., and ZAPPALA, CAPPY, CASTILLE, NIGRO and NEWMAN, JJ.

OPINION ANNOUNCING THE JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

CAPPY, Justice.

This case presents the question of what level of protection public school students are entitled to during a school wide search under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. ¹ For the reasons that follow we find that public school students have a limited expectation of privacy while in the school environment. In balancing this limited privacy interest against the need to maintain a safe and secure environment for all public school students, we find that public school students are subject to a search by school officials when the decision to search is reasonable given all the circumstances present at the inception of the search and the search itself is reasonably limited in its scope to the objective which initially prompted the search. Applying this principle, we reverse the decision of the Superior Court.

The actions which prompted this appeal occurred on April 12, 1994 at the Harborcreek High School in Harborcreek Township, Erie County, Pennsylvania. The school principal announced to the students that morning that a safety inspection would be conducted. The students were to remain in their classes until the inspection was completed. The inspection was in actuality a search of all the student lockers, 2,000 in number, for the presence of drugs and/or drug paraphernalia. In order to expedite the search process, the principal enlisted the aid of two police officers and a trained drug dog. The methodology for the search was that the Erie police officer who was designated as the dog handler would take the dog to each locker in the school accompanied by school officials. When the dog "alerted" to a particular locker, the other officer, along with school officials, would open that locker, and any lockers adjacent thereto, and search the contents. Based upon the alerts by the dog, a total of 18 lockers were searched during the inspection. Appellee's locker was the only one of the 18 lockers searched which was found to contain contraband. The search of appellee's locker resulted in the seizure of a small amount of marijuana, a pipe, a roach clip and rolling papers. Appellee was subject to a ten-day out of school suspension and required to attend counseling. In addition, appellee was charged criminally with possession of a small amount of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. ² In connection with the criminal charges, appellee filed a motion to suppress the items seized from his locker during the safety inspection. Appellee claimed in the motion to suppress that the search and seizure violated his rights under both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

The trial court held a hearing on the motion to suppress on October 4, 1994. At the suppression hearing the school principal testified that the search was undertaken due to concerns which had arisen over the preceding months indicating that drugs were being sold within the school. The principal offered several reasons for his heightened concern as to drug activity within the school: information received from unnamed students; observations from teachers of suspicious activity by the students, such as passing small packages between themselves in the hallways; increased use of the student assistance program for counseling students with drug problems; calls from concerned parents; observation of a growing number of students carrying beepers; students in possession of large amounts of money; and increased use of pay phones by students. The principal also testified that he had observed students exhibiting physical signs of drug use such as dilated pupils while in the school nurse's office. Armed with this information the principal decided upon the course of conduct described above as the most efficient method of searching the 2,000 lockers in the school. The principal testified that he had not received any specific information implicating appellee as being involved in drug activity. The parties all agree that the search, as undertaken, was a general search as opposed to a particularized search which would have focused on a certain student or, in this case, a certain locker. The principal also offered in support of his decision to undertake this generalized search the Harborcreek school code which provides as follows:

School authorities may search a student's locker and seize any illegal materials. Prior to a locker search a student shall be notified and given an opportunity to be present. However, where school authorities have a reasonable suspicion that the locker contains materials which pose a threat to the health, welfare, and safety of students in the school, students' lockers may be searched without prior warning. (See Reproduced Record at p. 142a). ³

Appellee's home room teacher testified that copies of the Harborcreek school code were given to each student at the beginning of each school year. Students were instructed to read the code and have the book signed by themselves and their parents with the signature sheet returned to their homeroom teacher. On March 1, 1994, six weeks prior to the search at issue, this procedure of distribution of the school code was repeated in each homeroom. ⁴

Upon considering all the evidence presented by the Commonwealth, the trial court granted the motion to suppress. The trial court held that probable cause was not required before school officials could conduct a search of a student's locker and that a search of a student locker would be valid upon a showing of reasonable suspicion. Applying the reasonable suspicion standard to the facts in this case, the trial court concluded that the search at issue did not meet the necessary legal standard. Although the trial court recognized the good intentions of the principal in his attempt to address the real problem of drug use menacing public school students, the court concluded that "good intentions" alone could not justify the sweeping search which was undertaken here in the absence of some level of articulable suspicion. The court found the principal's generalized suspicions to fall short of an objective reasonable belief that would justify the search. The Superior Court affirmed the decision of the trial court. This court granted the Commonwealth's Petition for Allowance of Appeal, and for the reasons that follow, now reverse.

The instant case requires this court to decide what degree of scrutiny is appropriate when reviewing a constitutional challenge to a search conducted by public school officials on school property. ⁵ As the questions presented in this appeal require an analysis of the constitutionality of this locker search under both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, we begin our analysis with the Fourth Amendment, as it sets the minimum level of protection from unreasonable searches and seizures below which the states may not fall. Commonwealth v. Sell, 504 Pa. 46, 470 A.2d 457 (1983).

The United States Supreme Court has issued two decisions addressing the constitutionality of searches conducted by public school officials within the school environment: New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 105 S.Ct. 733, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985), and, Vernonia School District 47J v. Acton, 515 U.S. 646, 115 S.Ct. 2386, 132 L.Ed.2d 564 (1995). Briefly summarized,T.L.O. established the principle that the constitutionality of school searches would be determined upon a finding of reasonable suspicion rather than the stricter legal requirement of probable cause; Acton held that a school policy of random drug testing for students voluntarily engaged in school athletics did not violate the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches.

In T.L.O. a teacher discovered a freshman high school student smoking in the rest room in violation of a rule prohibiting smoking on school premises. The teacher escorted the student to the principal's office. Upon questioning by the vice-principal the student denied that she had been smoking and claimed that she did not smoke at all. The vice-principal demanded to see her purse, opened the purse, found a pack of cigarettes, and upon removing the cigarettes noticed a pack of rolling papers. The vice-principal, knowing that rolling papers were often used in conjunction with marijuana, searched further in the purse and discovered a small amount of marijuana, a pipe, empty baggies, a large quantity of money in small bills, an index card listing the names of other students who owed money to this student and two letters implicating the student in the sale of drugs. The student was subsequently brought before the Juvenile Court on charges arising from this incident. The Juvenile Court denied the motion to suppress the evidence, finding that the vice-principal had reasonable suspicion to believe that a violation had occurred and that the search was necessary to maintain school discipline. The New Jersey Supreme Court reversed holding that the search of the purse was not reasonable. The United States Supreme Court granted certiorari and reversed.

The Court in T.L.O. held that the Fourth Amendment does apply to searches of public school students by school officials, Id., 469 U.S. at 333, 105 S.Ct. at 738; that the students do have a legitimate expectation of privacy regarding their personal effects while in school, Id. at 339, 105 S.Ct. at 741; that school officials have a...