In Matter of Elvin G. , Elvin was adjudicated a "juvenile delinquent" after his school's dean found a hunting knife in the kid's pocket.
The dean was summoned to the classroom when a teacher complained of disruptive sounds, possibly from a cell phone, emanating from an unknown source. In order to find the culprit, students were directed to empty their pockets. Elvin reportedly removed a knife and held it in his hand, for all to observe.
The Bronx County Family Court found Elvin guilty of unlawful possession of a weapon, and placed him with the Office of Children and Family Services for a year. Although Elvin filed a motion to suppress the introduction of the knife at his hearing -- claiming that the search was unlawful because the dean had "no reasonable suspicion that [Elvin] was engaged in any illegal activity" -- that motion was denied.
On appeal, the Appellate Division, First Department, agreed with the Family Court and concluded that "the dean simply sought to restore order to a disrupted classroom, which is not a law enforcement interest. Therefore, the dean's subsequent actions required neither probable cause nor reasonable suspicion to justify asking students to empty their pockets."
Even if a "search" had taken place "the dean's actions were reasonably related to restore order to the classroom and the search was not excessively intrusive in light of [Elvin's] age and sex and nature of the infraction."
Two dissenters - Justices Lippman and Catterson -- were of the opinion that there were inconsistencies as to how the knife came into plain view. Because of those differing accounts, the two justices believed a suppression hearing was necessary to resolve that dispute.
Moreover, the dissenters believed that additional fact-finding was necessary to determine whether a pocket search was the least intrusive way to find the cell phone, and whether the search struck a reasonable balance between the students' privacy rights and the school administrators' interests. While "school authorities are given wide latitude to conduct searches on school premises, [that] does not mean that students forfeit all their Fourth Amendment rights when they step through school doors."
Yeh, right! (Do you hear something ringing?)
To download a copy of the Appellate Division's decision, please use this link: Matter of Elvin G.