AELE LAW LIBRARY OF CASE SUMMARIES:
Civil Liability of
Law Enforcement Agencies & Personnel
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Search and Seizure: School Premises
A 7-year-old grade school student sued a public school police officer and the school principal for violating his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. He was handcuffed at the school following an outburst from him against a classmate who had been persistently teasing him. A federal appeals court concluded that neither the officer nor the principal had violated the student’s rights, and they were both entitled to qualified immunity on excessive force and unreasonable seizure claims. Under the circumstances, a reasonable officer could believe, based on the boy’s recent resistance, that keeping him in handcuffs for 15 minutes until a parent arrived was the reasonable thing to do. The officer could have also believed that his actions were needed to prevent the student from attempting to leave or pose a risk of harm to himself. Additionally, the principal’s failure to intervene and have the officer remove the handcuffs was reasonable because of her previous experience with the student. She had previously found it necessary to restrain him several months before. Even if the reasonableness of the officer and the principal’s actions were questionable, the student could not show that a reasonable official would have been on notice that their conduct violated a clearly established right. Because there was no violation of the student’s constitutional rights, the municipal liability claims also failed. K.W.P. v. Kansas City Public Schools, #17-3602, 2019 U.S. App. Lexis 23023, 2019 WL 3489104 (8th Cir.).
In a case involving alleged
"sexting" by a 17-year-old high school student (transmitting
semi-nude photos of herself over a cellphone), a lawsuit against a school
district on behalf of the student has been settled for a total of $33,000 to be
paid to the girl and her attorneys with no admission of fault by the school
district. The lawsuit contended that the school unlawfully searched the
student's cellphone, punished her for storing semi-nude photos of herself on
it, and subsequently referred her case to the local district attorney's office
for possible criminal prosecution under child pornography laws. Fourth and
First Amendment claims were asserted as well as common law privacy claims. The
phone was initially seized because the student used it in the bathroom in
violation of school rules, and the principal then searched the phone's stored
messages, and discovered the photos, some of which showed the girl's naked
breasts and one of which showed her fully naked. The photos were intended to be
seen by only the student and her long-time boyfriend, and were not circulated
to other students at the school. Claims in the lawsuit against the prosecutor's
office, individual prosecutors, and a police detective are still pending and
were not settled. N.N. v. Tunkhannock Area School District, #3:02-at-06999,
(M.D. Pa. 2010). Various documents about the case and the settlement can be
found on a website.
Two parents sued a school district and various
individual defendants, claiming that a visitor management policy implemented at
a school violated their rights against unreasonable search and seizure, as well
as rights of due process, privacy, and free speech. The policy, adopted after a
sex offender gained access to a school in the district, and exposed himself to
a child, required every visitor to district schools to show a state-issued
photo ID card or be denied access to secure areas of the school where children
might be present. The mother had been denied access to an area of her child's
school because she refused to allow the school to either scan her driver's
license or enter the information from it manually. Rejecting the parents'
claims, a federal appeals court ruled that the plaintiffs had failed to show
that they had a fundamental right to access the school's secure areas. The
defendants were granted summary judgment and awarded costs. Meadows v. Lake
Travis Independent School District, #09-50850, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 18802
(Unpub. 5th Cir.).
A student was subjected to a ten-day suspension
from school after he wrote a slogan on the back of his hands supporting a
former student who was accused of shooting a police officer. The student sued,
seeking a judicial declaration that the school's actions violated his First
Amendment rights, and the expungement of his suspension, as well as damages and
attorneys' fees. A federal court rejected this claim. Even if the student acted
in a peaceful and passive manner in displaying the slogan, his actions took
place within a context of hostility and intimidation. School authorities could
reasonably believe that his actions might contribute to disturbances already
going on because of gang activity and the same slogan, even if no individual
had felt threatened by his actions. Allowing the student to display the slogan
might have increased the fear and tension already expressed by some students
and parents over the slogan, so the school could properly prohibit its display.
Brown v. Cabell County Board of Education, #3:09-0279, 2010 U.S. Dist. Lexis
53200 (S.D.W.Va.).
In a case allegedly involving "sexting"
by underage girls, the sending of nude or provocative sexually oriented
photographs of oneself to others via cell phones or the Internet, a federal
appeals court enjoined the prosecution of the plaintiffs, based on a claim that
the threatened prosecution on felony child pornography charges was in unlawful
retaliation for the plaintiffs' exercise of their First Amendment rights in
refusing to attend an educational meeting on the subject in order to avoid
prosecution. In at least one instance, a parent argued that the photograph sent
by her daughter was not child pornography, since it involved no nudity, while a
prosecutor took the position that it was child pornography because it was posed
in a provocative manner. Coercing attendance to such educational meetings by
threats of prosecution, the court stated, could violate parents' rights to
parental autonomy under the Fourteenth Amendment (including deciding what
lessons concerning morality and gender roles to give their children), and their
children's First Amendment rights against compelled speech. Miller v. Mitchell,
#09-2144, 2010 U.S. App. Lexis 5501 (3rd Cir.).