Com. v. Snyder

• Decision Date: 25 August 1992
• Citation: 413 Mass. 521,597 N.E.2d 1363
• Parties: , 76 Ed. Law Rep. 843 COMMONWEALTH v. Jeffrey SNYDER.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 1363

597 N.E.2d 1363

413 Mass. 521, 76 Ed. Law Rep. 843

COMMONWEALTH v. Jeffrey SNYDER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Berkshire.

Argued May 6, 1992.

Decided Aug. 25, 1992.

Juliane Balliro, Boston, for defendant.

Paul J. Caccaviello, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Com.

Before LIACOS, C.J., and WILKINS, ABRAMS, LYNCH and GREANEY, JJ.

WILKINS, Justice.

This appeal concerns Jeffrey Snyder, who, at the time of the events involved here, was an eighteen year old high school senior in a Berkshire County regional high school. Snyder challenges the admission of certain evidence in his trial on charges of violation of the drug laws. School administrators obtained some of that evidence during a warrantless search of the defendant's school locker and the balance of it during a subsequent interrogation of the defendant, before which the administrators did not warn Snyder of his rights, including his right to remain silent.

Snyder argues that, when the school administrators looked for and took marihuana found in his locker, they violated his constitutional rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. He also contends that the school administrators violated his rights by not giving him Miranda warnings before questioning him. During that questioning, the defendant confessed to having sold a bag of marihuana to a fellow student and to owning the three other bags of marihuana found in his locker.

We conclude that the defendant's arguments lack merit. We, therefore, need not consider the separate question whether, if one or more of his contentions were valid, the evidence obtained in violation of his rights should not have been admitted in evidence at his trial.

We recite facts that were found by the judge who denied the defendant's motion to suppress the evidence. We supplement them with details from the uncontroverted testimony of the school administrators and a Great Barrington police officer.

Linda Day, the principal of Monument Mountain Regional High School in Great Barrington, testified that about 12:45 P.M. on December 21, 1989, a faculty member came to see her. The faculty member reported that a student had said that the defendant had approached the student and had asked if the student wanted to buy some marihuana for twenty-five dollars. The faculty member had worked at the school for approximately fifteen years, had extensive contact with students, and had many times provided reliable information to school administrators. Principal Day asked John F. Canning, the assistant principal, to join them in her office, and the faculty member repeated the information. The faculty member added that the student had reported the attempted sale about 10:30 A.M. The student said that Snyder had showed the student a video cassette case that contained three bags of marihuana and that Snyder had then put the video cassette case in his book bag.

The school administrators decided to locate Snyder. Canning found Snyder in the student center, which was crowded with students. From a distance Canning could not see Snyder's book bag. Canning and Day then consulted. They did not know if other students were involved. Nor did they know the full extent of the marihuana. They did not want to arouse suspicion. The administrators decided not to approach Snyder in the student center but rather to wait until the beginning of the next school period (about 1:20 P.M.), when Snyder was scheduled to be in a class, and then search Snyder's locker for the book bag. At that time, Canning and Day, using the combination to the locker that was available at the school's main office, opened the locker. They found the book bag, the video cassette case, and three bags containing marihuana. They took these items to Day's office and concealed them behind her desk.

Day then located Snyder and brought him to her office. There, in Canning's presence, Day asked Snyder if it was true, as reported to her, that he had offered to sell marihuana in the school. Snyder admitted that he had. Snyder, who was upset, said that he could not believe this was happening and that he had never done this before. He said that a friend had given him the marihuana to sell, that he had become troubled about doing it, and that he had called his friend to come to the school at two o'clock to take back what he had not sold. Snyder admitted that the book bag, the video cassette case, and the bags of marihuana were his. Snyder said that there had been four bags of marihuana but that he had sold one for twenty-five dollars to a student. Day called Snyder's mother, who came to the school. Canning called the police. ¹ Snyder was allowed to meet with his girl friend alone in Day's office before the police came.

Shortly before two o'clock, Officer Beckwith of the Great Barrington police department arrived at the school. Day recited what Snyder had said; Beckwith gave Snyder his Miranda warnings; and Snyder confirmed that Day's recitation was true. Not long after that, the person who had provided Snyder with the marihuana, a graduate of the school, was located in the school. ² Officer Beckwith took Snyder to the police station shortly before 2:30 P.M. where the officer again warned Snyder of his rights. Snyder signed a rights waiver and gave a written statement, the substance of which Officer Beckwith testified to at Snyder's trial.

The motion judge denied Snyder's motion to suppress the evidence found in Snyder's locker and the admissions that Snyder made to Day, Canning, and Beckwith. The argument that the statements made to Beckwith should be suppressed, even though Beckwith had given the defendant Miranda warnings, was based on the theory that this evidence would not have been obtained if Day and Canning had not already violated Snyder's rights by failing to advise him of those rights. The motion judge concluded that, because Snyder had no reasonable expectation of privacy in his locker, the locker search did not violate Snyder's constitutional rights. He concluded alternatively that the school authorities had reasonable suspicion that a crime had been committed and that the search of Snyder's locker was, therefore, reasonable. He further concluded that the defendant's admissions were made in circumstances that were fair and proper.

Snyder waived a jury trial, and on April 8, 1991, a judge in the Pittsfield District Court found Snyder guilty of (1) illegal possession of a class D substance, (2) possession of a class D substance with intent to distribute it, and (3) possession of a class D substance with intent to distribute it in a school. The judge sentenced Snyder to one day in a house of correction on the charge of possession of a class D substance with intent to distribute it (G.L. c. 94C, § 32C [1990 ed.] ), and two years in a house of correction, following service of the first sentence, on the charge of possession of a class D substance with intent to distribute it in a public high school (G.L. c. 94C, § 32J [1990 ed.] ). The charge of simple possession was placed on file with the defendant's consent. The trial judge stayed execution of the sentence pending Snyder's appeal, which we transferred to this court. ³

1. We consider first the question whether the search of Snyder's locker violated Snyder's rights.

The motion judge's conclusion that Snyder had no legitimate expectation of privacy in his school locker was wrong. Recent decisions elsewhere have recognized that, barring some express understanding to the contrary, students have a reasonable and protected expectation of privacy in their school lockers. See State v. Engerud, 94 N.J. 331, 348, 463 A.2d 934 (1983); State v. Michael G., 106 N.M. 644, 646, 748 P.2d 17 (Ct.App.1987); In re Dumas, 357 Pa.Super. 294, 297, 515 A.2d 984 (1986); State v. Joseph T., 175 W.Va. 598, 606, 336 S.E.2d 728 (1985). In this case, the school administration explicitly acknowledged in the students' rights and responsibility code that each student had the right "[n]ot to have his/her locker subjected to unreasonable search." In light of this assurance from the school administration, it is especially clear that Snyder had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his locker that was entitled to constitutional protection. See New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 338, 105 S.Ct. 733, 741, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (1985); Commonwealth v. Panetti, 406 Mass. 230, 231, 547 N.E.2d 46 (1989). Because Snyder had such a reasonable expectation of privacy in his locker, he was entitled to argue that his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures was violated by the search of his locker and the seizure of the marihuana and to argue, therefore, that the evidence seized (and all evidence subsequently obtained as fruits of the unlawful seizure) must be suppressed. He was entitled to make a similar argument under art. 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights, both because he had a reasonable expectation of privacy in his locker and because he had automatic standing to challenge the lawfulness of the seizure of the marihuana (see Commonwealth v. Frazier, 410 Mass. 235, 242-244, 571 N.E.2d 1356 [1991] ), possession of which was an element of each crime with which he was charged.

We have little difficulty in concluding that the search conducted without the authority of a search warrant did not violate Snyder's rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The test under the Fourth Amendment for school administrators is whether the search of the locker was reasonable in all the circumstances. See New Jersey v. T.L.O., supra 469 U.S. at 341, 105 S.Ct. at 742; Commonwealth v. Carey, 407 Mass. 528, 533, 554 N.E.2d 1199 (1990) (upholding warrantless search of student locker as not violating Fourth Amendment; defendant made no proper claim that search violated his parallel right under Constitution of Commonwealth). This Fourth Amendment test is a lower standard than the traditional one, which...