In re Randy G.

• Decision Date: 13 August 2001
• Docket Number: No. S089733.,S089733.
• Citation: 28 P.3d 239,110 Cal.Rptr.2d 516,26 Cal.4th 556
• Court: California Supreme Court
• Parties: In re RANDY G., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. The People, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Randy G., Defendant and Appellant.

110 Cal.Rptr.2d 516

26 Cal.4th 556

28 P.3d 239

In re RANDY G., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.

The People, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. Randy G., Defendant and Appellant.

No. S089733.

Supreme Court of California.

August 13, 2001.

Robert S. Gerstein, Santa Monica, under appointment by the Supreme Court; and Michele A. Douglass, Long Beach, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Mark D. Rosenbaum, Los Angeles, for American Civil Liberties Union as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant.

John T. Philipsborn, San Francisco, for California Attorneys for Criminal Justice as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Defendant and Appellant.

Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, David P. Druliner, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Carol Wendelin Pollack, Assistant Attorney General, William T. Harter, Joana Perez Castille, Donald E. De Nicola and Richard S. Moskowitz, Deputy Attorneys General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Parker & Covert, Spencer E. Covert, Tustin, and Barbara J. Ginsberg, Santa Ana, for California School Boards Association's Education Legal Alliance and California Association of Supervisors of Child Welfare and Attendance as Amici Curiae on behalf of Plaintiff and Respondent.

BAXTER, J.

In this case we are asked to determine whether school officials may detain a minor student on school grounds in the absence of reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or violation of a school rule. The minor, Randy G., contends that when school security officers called him out of class into the hallway, he was detained without cause in violation of his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court of Appeal, relying on In re Frederick B. (1987) 192 Cal.App.3d 79, 237 Cal.Rptr. 338, applied the reasonable suspicion standard to this encounter, which occurred on school grounds and during school hours, and found that it had been satisfied. We do not decide whether the record supports that finding of reasonable suspicion because we conclude instead that the broad authority of school administrators over student behavior, school safety, and the learning environment requires that school officials have the power to stop a minor student in order to ask questions or conduct an investigation even in the absence of reasonable suspicion, so long as such authority is not exercised in an arbitrary, capricious, or harassing manner. On this ground, we affirm the Court of Appeal.

I BACKGROUND

A petition filed pursuant to Welfare and Institutions Code section 602 alleged that the 14-year-old minor had violated Penal Code section 626.10, subdivision (a) by possessing a knife with a locking blade on school grounds. Prior to the jurisdictional hearing, the minor moved to suppress evidence of the knife, asserting that its discovery during a consent search had been tainted by the preceding illegal detention in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Moving him from the classroom into the hallway for questioning was, he claimed, an unreasonable detention because there was no articulable basis for a reasonable suspicion that he had engaged or was engaging in the proscribed activity, i.e., violation of a criminal statute or school rule. The motion was denied, after which the petition was sustained. The minor was declared a ward of the court and placed on probation.

The evidence offered at the hearing on the motion to suppress reflects the following:

Cathy Worthy, a campus security officer at the public high school attended by the minor, testified that during "passing time,"¹ approximately 9:00 a.m. on March 16, 1999, she was between "C building and A auditorium." As she came around one of two large pillars in that area, she observed the minor and a friend in an area of the campus in which students are not permitted to congregate. When the minor saw Worthy, he "fixed his pocket very nervously." Some of the lining of the left pocket was still sticking out. Worthy asked the two if they needed anything and instructed them to go to class. The minor finished fixing his pocket and went back to class. Worthy followed them to see where they were going because the minor acted "very paranoid and nervous." She then notified her supervisor and at his direction summoned another security officer.

When the two officers went to the classroom, Worthy asked the minor if she could see him outside. Once in the hallway, Worthy asked the minor if he had anything on him. He replied "no" and repeated that denial when asked again. The second officer asked the minor for consent to search his bag. The minor consented, and replied "no" again to Worthy's repeated question whether he had anything on him. The second officer then asked the minor for permission to do a patdown search. Worthy asked if it was okay, and the minor replied "yes." A patdown search by the other officer revealed a knife, later found to have a locking blade, in the minor's left pocket.

During the 10 minutes the minor was in the hallway being questioned by Worthy before the consent to search was given, he was not free to leave. Commenting that the officer had engaged in "good security work" based on the minor's looking nervous or paranoid and adjusting his pocket upon seeing her, the judge denied the motion to suppress.

On appeal from the order declaring him a ward of the court, the minor repeated the arguments made in support of his motion to exclude the knife—i.e., that because the campus security officer had lacked reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or violation of a school rule, the detention violated his right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, and that his consent to search was a product of that unlawful detention. The Court of Appeal agreed with the minor that the standard to be applied was whether "the detaining officer has reasonable suspicion that the person to be detained has been, is, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity" (In re Frederick B., supra, 192 Cal. App.3d at pp. 84-85, 237 Cal.Rptr. 338) or is about to engage in a violation of those school rules that exist for the protection of other students attending school or for the preservation of order at the school. The Frederick B. court had adapted its standard for judging the lawfulness of a detention of a student from In re William G. (1985) 40 Cal.3d 550, 564, 221 Cal.Rptr. 118, 709 P.2d 1287 (William G.) and New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985) 469 U.S. 325, 341-342, 105 S.Ct. 733, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (T.L.O.

), both of which involved the search of a student. Applying that standard (as expanded to include school rules and regulations designed for the protection of students or the preservation of order), the Court of Appeal held that the detention of the minor was reasonable. The minor's violation of a school rule, together with his nervous fixing of the protruding lining of his pocket, gave rise to reasonable suspicion sufficient to justify a detention for the purpose of asking questions about the conduct the security officer had observed.

In this court, the minor contends that no articulable facts supported a reasonable suspicion of misconduct. The People argue that the reasonable-suspicion standard does not apply to a detention of a student by a school official on school grounds.

II DISCUSSION

According to the minor, the question presented here is whether the circumstances outlined above "made the security officer aware of sufficient `articulable facts' to warrant reasonable suspicion that [the minor] was committing a crime, or violating a rule designed to protect other students or to maintain order in the school, thereby justifying his detention for investigation of the offense." He contends that the absence of facts supporting reasonable suspicion rendered his detention invalid under the Fourth Amendment, requiring suppression of the locking-blade knife found in his pocket.

To decide whether relevant evidence obtained by assertedly unlawful means must be excluded, we look exclusively to whether its suppression is required by the United States Constitution. (In re Lance W. (1985) 37 Cal.3d 873, 885-890, 210 Cal.Rptr. 631, 694 P.2d 744.)

A

The first question, then, is whether the minor was detained. A detention occurs "[o]nly when the officer, by means of physical force or show of authority, has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen. . . ." (Terry v. Ohio (1968) 392 U.S. 1, 19, fn. 16, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889; People v. Souza (1994) 9 Cal.4th 224, 229, 36 Cal.Rptr.2d 569, 885 P.2d 982.) In the general run of cases, where the police have succeeded in apprehending the suspect, there is no dispute that the suspect's liberty has been thereby restrained. (E.g., Terry, supra, 392 U.S. at pp. 6-7,88 S.Ct. 1868 [officer grabbed defendant while he was walking down the street and spun him around]; Souza, supra, 9 Cal.4th at p. 228,36 Cal.Rptr.2d 569,885 P.2d 982 [defendant was stopped while running down the street].) After all, in those cases, the defendant, in the absence of the stop, would have been free to continue on his way.

A minor at school, however, can hardly be said to be free to continue on his or her way. "Traditionally at common law, and still today, unemancipated minors lack some of the most fundamental rights of self-determination—including even the right of liberty in its narrow sense, i.e., the right to come and go at will. They are subject, even as to their physical freedom, to the control of their parents or guardians." (Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton (1995) 515 U.S. 646, 654, 115 S.Ct. 2386, 132 L.Ed.2d 564 (Vernonia).) Although the high court has rejected the notion that public schools, like private schools, exercise only parental power over their students, the power that public schools do exercise is nonetheless "custodial and tutelary, permitting a degree of supervision and control that could not be exercised over free adults." (Id. at p. 655, 115 S.Ct....