Phaneuf v. Fraikin, No. 04-4783 (2d Cir. May 19, 2006)
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled that school officials violated a student's Fourth Amendment right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure by subjecting her to a strip search after receiving a tip that she planned to bring marijuana to a class picnic. Before departing for the picnic, seniors at Plainville High School were to have their bags checked for security reasons. A student reported to a teacher that Kelly Phaneuf had said that she had some marijuana and planned to hide it in her pants during the bag check. Principal Rose Marie Cipriano instructed the school nurse to strip search Kelly. When the nurse expressed reluctance, Ms. Cipriano called Kelly's mother and asked her to come and conduct the search. Meanwhile, Ms. Cipriano searched Kelly's bag, finding cigarettes and a lighter, both violations of school rules, but no drugs. Kelly's mother arrived and searched Kelly, but found no drugs. Kelly subsequently sued, arguing that school officials lacked the reasonable suspicion for the search required by
New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985). The district court concluded that the search satisfied
T.L.O.'s two-prong test requiring that the search be: 1) reasonable at its inception; and (2) reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the interference in the first place.
The Second Circuit reversed. Citing Cornfield by
Lewis v. Consolidated High School District, 991 F.2d 1316 (7th Cir. 1993), the appeals court noted that, "What may constitute reasonable suspicion for a search of a locker or even a pocket or pocketbook may fall well short of reasonableness for a nude search" and that, "as the intrusiveness of the search of a student intensifies, so too does the standard of Fourth Amendment reasonableness." The court found that the four factors relied by school officials to justify the search, whether considered individually or together, failed to meet the Fourth Amendment standard. The reliability and trustworthiness of the student tip was questionable because the principal took no steps to investigate, corroborate, or otherwise substantiate the charges. The court concluded that, "while the uncorroborated tip no doubt justified additional inquiry and investigation by school officials, we are not convinced that it justified a step as intrusive as a strip search." The court disposed of the second factor, Kelly's past disciplinary record, finding that none of her past offenses were related to drug use. Turning to the supposedly suspicious manner of Kelly's denials, the court found a teacher's and the principal's statements to be conclusory because the record was devoid of any explanation as to what they meant by "suspicious." Finally, the court found that Kelly's possession of the other contraband was minimally probative of her possible use of marijuana but was insufficient to create a heightened level of suspicion as would justify a highly intrusive search. School officials could not "vault from the finding of one type of (commonly used) contraband, to a suspicion involving the smuggling of another." Having found that the search was not reasonable from its inception, the court did not address the second prong of
T.L.O. or the issue of qualified immunity for school officials.
Phaneuf v. Fraikin, No. 04-4783 (2d Cir. May 19, 2006)
[Full opinion][
Editor's Note: A summary of the lower court opinion is available below.]
[NSBA School Law pages on Phaneuf v. Cipriano]