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New Jersey Criminal lawyer - Appellate Opinions
State v.
Best, 201 N.J. 100 (2010)
It is the
school environment and the need for safety, order, and discipline
that is the underpinning for the school official-who has reasonable
grounds to believe that a student possesses contraband-to conduct a
reasonable search for such evidence. To be sure, a student may hide
contraband in his or her clothing, purse, book bag, locker, or
automobile. Consequently, we conclude that the reasonableness
standard, and not the traditional warrant and probable cause
requirements, applies to the school authorities' search of a
student's automobile on school property.
We turn now to apply the reasonable grounds standard to the facts
here. As noted, that standard requires that we first determine
whether the school authority was justified to conduct a search at
the inc That is, were there reasonable grounds for suspecting that
the search would turn up evidence that the student violated or was
violating either the law or the rules of the school?
Here, the vice
principal met with a student, who appeared to be under the influence
of drugs, and the student indicated that defendant had given him a
green pill. That information was sufficient for the vice principal
to interview defendant and, once defendant denied any knowledge, to
search his clothing for contraband.
The second
part of the test is whether the search conducted was reasonably
related in scope to the circumstances that justified the
interference in the first place.
. The search of defendant's person revealed three white
capsules in his pants pocket, but no green pills were found.
Defendant then admitted that he sold a white pill to a student for
five dollars, claiming the pill was a nutritional supplement. The
vice principal next extended the search to defendant's locker, and
when that proved unsuccessful, to defendant's car. It was reasonable
for the vice principal to believe that defendant may have additional
contraband in all areas accessible to him on school property,
including his locker and his car. Consequently, the vice principal's
search of defendant's car was reasonably related in scope to the
various locations on school property that defendant might have
placed the contraband-on his person, his locker, and his car.
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