Opinion
A160888
07-08-2021
In re IGNACIO C., a Person Coming Under the Juvenile Court Law. THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and Respondent, v. IGNACIO C., Defendant and Appellant.
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED
Contra Costa County Super. Ct. No. J19-00096
Margulies, Acting P. J.
Ignacio C., a minor, appeals from the juvenile court dispositional order declaring him a ward of the court for unlawfully possessing a knife on school grounds. He contends the evidence against him should have been suppressed because it was discovered through an unlawful search. We hold, under the facts of this case, the search was reasonable and affirm.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
A.V., the assistant principal at a Richmond middle school, was notified by a parent of a student that her son had been offered drugs by appellant while on the campus. A.V. believed the student told his parent that appellant was offering a pill. She did not know how long after the incident the son reported it to his parent, nor how long after the son's report the parent notified her.
A.V. testified, however, that whenever there is “a report of a student possibly having drugs on them, ” the school performs a safety check on the same day by calling the student into the office where he or she is searched.
Pursuant to that policy, appellant was escorted to A.V.'s office. A.V., Richmond Police Officer Ethan Katz, and the school's campus safety officer (CSO) were present in the office. Once in the office, appellant was asked to empty his pockets, and A.V. searched appellant's backpack while the CSO searched his sweatshirt. The CSO then asked appellant if he had anything “on him that we needed to know about.” He replied, “ ‘yes.' ” Appellant then lifted his shirt and reached into his shorts underneath his pants where he had a “speed-assist knife” in the “right-appendix area between his shorts and skin.” At this point, appellant removed the knife and handed it to Officer Katz. No other contraband was found other than the knife.
Officer Katz testified the school's principal told him that he had received calls from parents, stating appellant was suspected of selling either ecstasy or edible marijuana. The court allowed this testimony for the nonhearsay purpose of explaining the officer's conduct but not for the truth.
A.V. testified appellant was asked “if he had anything on him that he shouldn't, and he openly stated that he had a knife on him.”
The Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office filed a juvenile wardship petition (Welf. & Inst. Code, § 602, subd. (a)) charging appellant with misdemeanor possession of a knife on school grounds (Pen. Code, § 626.10, subd. (a)).
Following a contested jurisdiction hearing and motion to suppress the knife under Welfare and Institutions Code section 700.1, the juvenile court denied the motion and sustained the petition. The court adjudged appellant a ward of the court with no termination date and placed him on probation with home supervision of 45 days.
II. DISCUSSION
Appellant claims there were no articulable facts to justify a reasonable suspicion he possessed drugs on his person on the day “school authorities” searched him.
“Our standard of review on appeal from the denial of a motion to suppress is well established. We defer to the trial court's factual findings where supported by substantial evidence, but we must exercise our independent judgment to determine whether, on the facts found, the search and seizure was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment standards of reasonableness.” (People v. Avila (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 1069, 1073-1074, citing People v. Leyba (1981) 29 Cal.3d 591, 596-597.)
The Fourth Amendment applies to searches of students attending public school. (Vernonia School Dist. 47J v. Acton (1995) 515 U.S. 646, 656 (Vernonia); Board of Ed. of Independent School Dist. No. 92 of Pottawatomie City v. Earls (2002) 536 U.S. 822, 829-830; In re Randy G. (2001) 26 Cal.4th 556, 561, 566.) The United States Supreme Court, however, has repeatedly held that “ ‘special needs' inhere in the public school context.” (Earls, at p. 829.) “[T]he accommodation of the privacy interests of schoolchildren with the substantial need of teachers and administrators for freedom to maintain order in the schools does not require strict adherence to the requirement that searches be based on probable cause to believe that the subject of the search has violated or is violating the law. Rather, the legality of a search of a student should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search.” (New Jersey v. T. L. O. (1985) 469 U.S. 325, 341 (T.L.O.).) “Fourth Amendment rights... are different in public schools than elsewhere; the ‘reasonableness' inquiry cannot disregard the schools' custodial and tutelary responsibility for children.” (Vernonia, at p. 656; accord, Earls, at p. 831 [“Securing order in the school environment sometimes requires that students be subjected to greater controls than those appropriate for adults.”].)
Against this backdrop, in order to protect school grounds from expanding violence or to prevent an increase in drug use among students, warrantless searches or detentions of students have been upheld under the general principles applicable to administrative or regulatory searches, provided appropriate safeguards are available “ ‘to assure that the individual's reasonable expectation of privacy is not “subject to the discretion of the official in the field.”' ” (T.L.O., supra, 469 U.S. at p. 342, fn. 8; Vernonia, supra, 515 U.S. at p. 653.) “In balancing students' privacy interests with the governmental interests in promoting a safe learning environment, ... searches of students by public school officials must be based on a reasonable suspicion that the student or students to be searched have engaged, or are engaging, in a proscribed activity (that is, a violation of a school rule or regulation, or a criminal statute). There must be articulable facts supporting that reasonable suspicion.” (In re William G. (1985) 40 Cal.3d 550, 564.) Whether the facts support a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing “is measured by an objective standard, not by the particular [school administrator's] subjective state of mind at the time of the [search].” (People v. Conway (1994) 25 Cal.App.4th 385, 388; see also People v. Greenwood (2010) 189 Cal.App.4th 742, 749.) “ ‘[A] search of a student by a public school official is unlawful if predicated on mere curiosity, rumor, or hunch.' ” (In re Joseph G. (1995) 32 Cal.App.4th 1735, 1740.)
In short, “[the] standard [applicable to student searches based on individual suspicion] requires articulable facts, together with rational inferences from those facts, warranting an objectively reasonable suspicion that the student or students to be searched are violating or have violated a rule, regulation, or statute.” (In re William G., supra, 40 Cal.3d at p. 564.)
In this case, we hold the juvenile court properly denied appellant's motion to suppress. A parent notified the assistant principal, A.V., that appellant offered drugs, a pill, to her son on the school campus. Whenever there is a report of a student possessing drugs, A.V. indicated, the school performs a safety check on the same day by calling the student into the office where the student is searched. That is exactly what happened here. After she received the parent report, A.V. followed school policy and had appellant escorted to her office where he was searched, revealing the knife.
The tip by the parent was sufficiently reliable to furnish reasonable suspicion. The fact that A.V., at the time of her testimony, did not know or remember the name of the parent, although a factor, was not paramount to gauging the tip's reliability. (In re Joseph G., supra, 32 Cal.App.4th at p. 1740.) More importantly, it appears the parent was not motivated by ill will, but rather by a desire to protect her son and other students from potential harm. (Id. at p. 1741.) Finally, it was significant that the parent was able to provide A.V. with the name of the individual, appellant, who was offering drugs.
Defendant complains the search was unreasonable because there was no evidence about when the offer was made and whether the pill was a controlled substance.
We conclude, however, that A.V. could have reasonably assumed the tip was fresh and involved an illegal drug rather than over-the-counter medication. Because A.V. is a school administrator, she had a duty to investigate to maintain a safe and secure learning environment for all students. As our Supreme Court noted in In re Randy G., “ ‘[E]ducation is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. [Citation.] ‘Some modicum of discipline and order is essential if the educational function is to be performed.' [Citation.] School personnel... must be permitted to exercise their broad supervisory and disciplinary powers, without worrying that every encounter with a student will be converted into an opportunity for constitutional review.” (In re Randy G., supra, 26 Cal.4th at p. 566.) A.V.'s suspicion was not based on mere “rumor” or “hunch” but was supported by a credible tip from a parent. In our view, A.V. would have been remiss if she had failed to act that day. And she had no reason to believe either the parent or her son provided stale information. Finally, A.V. could have reasonably believed the parent's concern related to illegal drugs because it seems highly unlikely a parent would contact the school over a student being offered “a simple aspirin.”
Appellant's reliance on Safford Unified School Dist. #1 v. Redding (2009) 557 U.S. 364 (Safford) is unavailing. In Safford, after the assistant principal received a report that a student, Savana, was giving pills to fellow students, Savana was taken to the school nurse's office to be searched by an administrative assistant and the nurse. (Id. at pp. 368-369.) The administrative assistant and the nurse “asked Savana to remove her jacket, socks, and shoes, leaving her in stretch pants and a T-shirt (both without pockets), which she was then asked to remove. Finally, Savana was told to pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, and to pull out the elastic on her underpants, thus exposing her breasts and pelvic area to some degree. No pills were found.” (Id. at p. 369.)
While the Safford court found the assistant principal's suspicion was “enough to justify a search of Savana's backpack and outer clothing” (Safford, supra, 557 U.S. at p. 373), it determined that having Savana pull her bra out and pull out the elastic on her underwear went too far. The court focused on whether this search was “ ‘reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.' ” (Id. at p. 375.) It further noted, “The scope will be permissible, that is, when it is ‘not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.' ” (Ibid.) Ultimately, Safford held “the content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion” because the assistant principal “had no reason to suspect that large amounts of the drugs were being passed around, or that individual students were receiving great numbers of pills. [¶] Nor could [the assistant principal] have suspected that Savana was hiding common painkillers in her underwear.” (Id. at pp. 375-376.) Stated succinctly, the court found under the reasonable suspicion standard that the strip search was unreasonably intrusive.
The school's policies prohibited the nonmedical use, possession, or sale of any drug on school grounds whether prescription or over-the-counter drugs. (Safford, supra, 557 U.S. at p. 371.)
The search here, in contrast, was far less intrusive. Appellant was asked to empty his pockets and then asked whether he had anything on him that he should not, at which point he lifted his shirt and reached down into his shorts, revealing the knife. Thus, Safford's emphasis on the intrusive scope of the search is inapposite.
Defendant relies on a statement later in the Safford opinion that the assistant principal never determined when a student, Marissa, had received the pills from Savana, and “if it had been a few days before, that would weigh heavily against any reasonable conclusion that Savana presently had the pills on her person, much less in her underwear.” (Safford, supra, 577 U.S. at p. 376.) We consider this language to be dicta because it was “unnecessary to the appellate court's resolution of the case” (Garfield Medical Center v. Belshé (1998) 68 Cal.App.4th 798, 806), which concentrated on the overly intrusive nature of the search. “A lower court is not bound by dicta in the opinions of a higher court. [Citation.] It is true that such language is often followed ‘where it demonstrates a thorough analysis of the issue or reflects compelling logic.' [Citation.] However, we have no obligation to follow Supreme Court dicta which we do not find compelling.” (County of San Bernardino v. Superior Court (1994) 30 Cal.App.4th 378, 388, first italics added.) This dicta in Safford reflects no analysis of its conclusionary statement nor consideration of the underlying policy of protecting students from harm. Therefore, we are not bound by it.
In sum, given the record, we conclude the juvenile court properly denied appellant's motion to suppress.
III. DISPOSITION
The judgment is affirmed.
WE CONCUR: Banke, J., Sanchez, J.