TRI In The News

School Search-and-Seizure Fight Not Over in MO

March 21, 2013

From Missouri Watchdog

ST. LOUIS — The fight over search and seizure in Springfield public schools isn’t over. It may be headed to the U.S . Supreme Court.

Nisha Whitehead, spokeswoman for the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based civil liberties group, told Missouri Watchdog she will appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, and declined further comment. The group recently lost a trial in appeals court.

At issue is whether law enforcement agencies can lock down schools and allow drug-sniffing dogs to hunt for illegal substances.

Rutherford Institute represents Doug and Mellony Burlison, parents of two students who allegedly had their possessions rummaged through during a search at Springfield’s Central High School in 2010.

The group argues this violates the students’ Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures, but the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri ruled otherwise in January 2012, a decision that was reaffirmed by the federal Court of Appeals this month.

Judge Diana Murphy ruled that the hunt did not violate school policy or undermine a student’s right to privacy. She said that was because students were told to leave the room before the drug-sniffing dog and sheriff’s deputy conducted the screening.

“Americans should be outraged over the fact that school officials are not only defending such clearly unconstitutional practices, but are actually going so far as to insist that these raids are a standard drill that will continue,” said John Whitehead, the Rutherford Institute’s president.

It’s an issue that doesn’t seem to be high on educational groups’ priority lists, but civil liberties groups are paying attention.

Dorothy Gardner, vice president of legislation and advocacy for the Missouri Parents Teachers Association, said her organization has no official position on school searches because no resolution on that issue has ever been voted on by the membership.

“There’s nothing that’s ever been brought forth,” she told Watchdog. “This is an issue that’s never been addressed.”

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is staying out of it.

“We usually don’t comment on those types of things,” said spokeswoman Sarah Potter. “The way a district handles those safety issues are up to the districts. Missouri is very much about local control.”

Ransom Ellis III, attorney for Springfield Public Schools, told Watchdog the issue is not the search, but the possibility of seizure, and he said the court ruled that separating a student from his backpack for a few minutes doesn’t qualify.

“Dogs don’t have opposable thumbs,” he said. “They can only sniff the air and gather probable cause for a search. In the case we had here there was no search – period.”

Springfield Public Schools has authorized use of drug-sniffing dogs for more than a decade, and tends to coordinate with local law enforcement to search each of its five high schools once a year, Ellis said.

The ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri considered being part of the litigation, but they said the case was unwinnable due to the conservative nature of the local courts, said its legal director, Doug Bonney.

“Given the state of the judiciary here we took a pass on it so I’m not surprised they lost,” he said.

The Supreme Court of the United States only hears about 1 percent of challenges each year, and the handful of rulings on school search and seizures haven’t gone the way of civil liberties groups, Bonney said.

“The big challenge is getting it heard,” he said, adding, “I’m glad to hear they’re going to try it.”