Fourth Amendment Case Study

In 1980 a high school teacher at a high school in New Jersey caught two girls smoking in one of the bathrooms. At that time students were allowed to smoke in some areas of the school but smoking in the bathroom was restricted. The teacher then proceeded to take them to the office where they met with the Assistant Vice Principal Theodore Choplick. T.L.O was one of the girls, she was a 14 year old freshman. T.L.O said that she had not been smoking but the second girl admitted that she had been smoking. Choplick then took T.L.O into his office and told her to let him see her purse. He opened the purse and found a pack of cigarettes, a package of cigarette rolling papers, a small amount of marijuana, a pipe, and some empty plastic bags. He also found a list of people who owed T.L.O money. Also contained within the letters was information that showed that T.L.O was selling marijuana. Choplick then called T.L.O’s mother as well as the police. When they arrived at the school Choplick gave the police
the contents that were in T.L.O’s purse. The police told T.L.O’s mother to take her to the police station. At the police station T.L.O admitted to selling marijuana at school. The state of New Jersey brought delinquency charges against T.L.O. Her admission as well as the things found in her purse were used as evidence in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Middlesex County. T.L.O tried to have the evidence that was taken from her purse out of court because she claimed it violated the Fourth Amendment. She also argued that her confession should be thrown out because it resulted from the “illegal search” of her purse. The juvenile court rejected her Fourth Amendment arguments and ruled that Choplick’s search was reasonable and sentenced T.L.O to one year of probation. T.L.O then appealed her case to the New Jersey Courts.
The Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division affirmed the denial of the request to suppress evidence. The New Jersey Supreme Court then reversed the decision and ruled that the exclusionary rule of the Fourth Amendment applies to the searches and seizures made by school officials. The case then went to the United States Supreme Court. The first thing the U.S Supreme Court did was ordered to rehear the argument about the question of whether the assistant principal violated the Fourth Amendment in T.L.O’s case. After rehearing the argument the court in a 6-3 decision written by Justice Byron R. White ruled that the search of T.L.O’s purse was reasonable under the circumstances. They stated that even though the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches and seizure also applied to public school officials, they may conduct reasonable searches of students with proper authority and probable
cause. Justice Stevens wrote the dissent and stated that the court should address the original issue of the case (whether the exclusionary rule applies in this situation). He said that the search was not justified and that the school administrator had o reason to believe that T.L.O’s purse had anything illegal within it. Thus the Fourth Amendment was violated according to his beliefs. I thought this case was very interesting. It was cool to read about something that is somewhat relevant to our lives. I thought that the Supreme Court got the ruling right. If someone was selling drugs at your highschool wouldn’t you want them to be stopped? I know I would. I disagree with the dissent. The assistant principal had every right to search her bag. She was caught for smoking and denied it. I think that gives him a right to search her bag and find out the truth if she was smoking or not. If it leads to deeper trouble than she was originally in that’s her own fault for selling drugs at school.