People v. J.D. (In re J.D.)

• Decision Date: 14 May 2014
• Docket Number: A138584
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: IN RE J.D., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. The People, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. J.D., Defendant and Appellant.

225 Cal.App.4th 709

170 Cal.Rptr.3d 464

IN RE J.D., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law.The People, Plaintiff and Respondent,

v.J.D., Defendant and Appellant.

A138584

Court of Appeal, First District, Division 1, California.

Filed April 15, 2014

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing May 14, 2014

Certified for Partial Publication.^*

See 4 Witkin & Epstein, Cal. Criminal Law (4th ed. 2012) Illegally Obtained Evidence, § 390 et seq.

Contra Costa County Superior Court, Hon. Barry Baskin, Judge. (Contra Costa County Super. Ct. No. J1101036)

Eileen A. Manning–Villar, Pacifica, under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and Appellant.

Ronald E. Niver, Deputy Attorney General, Kamala D. Harris, Attorney General of California, Dane R. Gillette, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gerald A. Engler, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Eric D. Share, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, for Plaintiff and Respondent.

Dondero, J.

In this appeal, we are asked to review the denial of a motion to suppress in a delinquency proceeding. Appellant's locker was searched by high school security and a sawed-off shotgun was found in his backpack. The trial court upheld the search. Following a jurisdictional hearing, the court sustained count one of the wardship petition alleging the minor possessed a firearm in a school zone, a felony (Pen. Code, § 626.9, subd. (b)), and dismissed two other counts on the People's motion. He now appeals the court's ruling on the suppression motion and challenges various conditions of his probation. His appeal is authorized by Welfare and Institutions Code section 800. We conclude the conduct undertaken by school security was reasonable and sustain the trial court's decision. We also modify appellant's probation conditions. As modified, the judgment is affirmed.

Statement of Facts

Charles Johnson was a campus security officer (CSO) for the West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD). At the time of the offense, he was assigned to Richmond High School, a part of the WCCUSD. On February 10, 2011, while on duty at the school, Johnson was approached by a female student who seemed concerned and wished to speak with Rose Sanders, another CSO at Richmond High School. Johnson accompanied her to see Sanders. A short while later, Johnson was called to Sanders's office to hear what the student had to say. The student related that on the day before, while the student was on an AC Transit bus, a Richmond High School student, T.H., pulled out a gun and shot someone. The student witness had been on the bus and indicated another student told her what T.H. had done with the weapon.

T.H. was currently enrolled at Richmond High School. Sanders wanted to know if T.H. was on campus and if he had a weapon on the premises. Johnson met with school administrators and was directed to detain T.H. and determine if he had any weapon.Johnson proceeded to the security office on campus to call Richmond police for help. When he arrived, Sergeant Russell of the Richmond Police Department was present for a visit. Russell told Johnson to locate T.H. but not confront him. Russell also advised Johnson to determine where T.H.'s locker is located.

To follow up on identifying T.H.'s locker, Johnson met with CSO Driscoll, the campus security officer who “deals with [student] lockers.” Each year, Driscoll re-keys the lockers and changes the combinations. While he does not assign lockers to individual students, Driscoll had information about who was assigned to particular lockers. Driscoll also is responsible for supervising the cleaning out of school lockers during the year and handling repair of jammed lockers. When Driscoll noticed the assigned locker of T.H., he told Johnson that was not the locker he “hangs around.” Driscoll related he had seen T.H. several times in the area of locker number 2499. On the day of the reported shooting, Driscoll had observed T.H. with his girlfriend in front of locker 2499. The couple was facing the set of lockers but Driscoll was not able to determine which one, if any, they might be using. This behavior seemed suspicious to Driscoll. The incident occurred when students were required to be either in class or at lunch but not in the hall area where T.H. was seen.

During their conversation, Driscoll advised Johnson that Richmond High students often shared their assigned locker with other students who were not assigned to that locker for the purpose of concealing contraband such as drugs and other items not permitted on campus. The CSO's were familiar with this behavior at the school.

Driscoll and Johnson along with Russell went to the area of locker 2499 to see if weapons were present. When opened, locker 2499 contained a couple of books, but nothing else. Russell then told Driscoll to check the adjacent lockers because the student had frequented the “area” of 2499. Shortly, Driscoll opened 2501, which was next to 2499. A backpack was found in it and, when removed from the location, the security officers noticed the butt of a sawed-off shotgun.

As these men were inspecting this group of lockers, other personnel had located T.H. on campus. He was discovered and surveilled as Driscoll, Johnson and Russell began inspecting the lockers in the area of 2499.

At the approximate time of this search, Sergeant Robert Gray of the Richmond Police Department was on campus based on the shooting report. Gray and another officer found T.H. on the campus and confronted him. While T.H. personally had no weapon, he was asked by the officers about a weapon. T.H. stated he had a handgun in his backpack, which was near him. This was verified by the officers checking the backpack.

Regarding the backpack found in locker 2501, in addition to the sawed-off shotgun, the school investigators found miscellaneous papers in the backpack belonging to minor J.D. These papers containing the minor's name included school assignment papers. Eventually, Gray met with the minor. He was Mirandized by the officer. The minor acknowledged a waiver of his rights. He admitted the shotgun belonged to him. The minor stated he had been bothered by other students at Richmond High School and possessed the weapon for his safety at the school.

Discussion

Recent events have demonstrated the increased concern school officials must have in the daily operation of public schools. Sites such as Columbine, Sandy Hook Elementary, and Virginia Tech have been discussed in our national media not because of their educational achievements, but because of the acute degree of violence visited on these and other campuses—hostility often predicated on killings with firearms. During the 2009–2010 school year, 33 students, staff, and others died in a school-associated violent event. ¹ In 2009, 8 percent of students in grades nine through twelve reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property at least one time.² According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, a division of the Center for Disease Control (CDC), in 2010, there were 828,000 nonfatal victimizations at school among students 12 through 18 years of age. In 2011, 5.9 percent of the students in grades nine through 12 did not attend school within 30 days of the CDC survey because they felt the school, or their way to or from school, was unsafe. Also, 7.4 percent of the same group reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property one or more times in the past 12 months before the survey.³ We must be cognizant of this alarming reality as we approach our role in assessing appropriate responses by school administrators to campus safety issues.

Education “is perhaps the most important function” of government. (Brown v. Board of Education (1954) 347 U.S. 483, 493, 74 S.Ct. 686, 98 L.Ed. 873.) As such, “government has a heightened obligation to safeguard students whom it compels to attend school. The special need for an immediate response to behavior that threatens either the safety of schoolchildren and teachers or the education process itself justified the Court in excepting school searches from the warrant and probable-cause requirement, and in applying a standard determined by balancing the relevant interests.” (New Jersey v. T.L.O. (1985) 469 U.S. 325, 353, 105 S.Ct. 733, 83 L.Ed.2d 720 (conc. opn. of Blackmun, J.) ( T.L.O.).) Of course, it is a given that students do not “shed their constitutional rights ... at the schoolhouse gate.” (Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) 393 U.S. 503, 506, 89 S.Ct. 733, 21 L.Ed.2d 731.) Yet “the ‘primary duty of school officials ... is the education and training of young people. A State has a compelling interest in assuring that the schools meet this responsibility. Without first establishing discipline and maintaining order, teachers cannot begin to educate their students.’ ” (In re Randy G. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 556, 562, 110 Cal.Rptr.2d 516, 28 P.3d 239 (Randy G.).) After all, all minor students are required to be in school. (Ed.Code, § 48200.) And “All students and staff of public primary, elementary, junior high, and senior high schools ... have the inalienable right to attend campuses which are safe, secure and peaceful.” (Cal. Const., art. 1, § 28, subd. (f)(1); italics added.) Among the ways school districts achieve this is by having security departments in the school to enforce the rules of the State and school district. ( Ed.Code, § 38000; Randy G., supra, 26 Cal.4th at pp. 562–563, 110 Cal.Rptr.2d 516, 28 P.3d 239.)

To properly employ the balance between the privacy interests of public school children with the important need to maintain order and discipline in schools today, the accommodation does not require rigid adherence to the requirement that searches be based on probable cause to believe the subject of the search has violated or is violating the law. Instead, the validity of a search on school property should depend on the reasonableness of the...