The Delaware Supreme Court has ruled that seizing an 8-year-old elementary school student in order to scare another student into confessing to theft was unreasonable and violated the Fourth Amendment rights of the detained student. The entire ruling in Hunt v State of Delaware can be found here.
David McDowell, the vice principal of Shields Elementary School, believed a fifth grader, “AB,” had bullied and stolen money from an autistic student. Mr McDowell asked the Cape Henlopen School District’s school resource officer, Delaware state trooper David Pritchett, to speak with AB. After obtaining permission from AB’s mother, the questioning took place in the school’s reading lab.
Mr McDowell was present at the beginning of the questioning but had to leave to attend to another matter before it finished. During questioning, both AB and Mr Pritchett stipulate that AB said he didn’t take the money, which was $1. Instead, he accused the student who was sitting next to the autistic student on the bus of taking the money. Mr Pritchett determined the identity of that student, Anthony J Hunt, using a bus seating chart, and brought him to the reading lab for questioning in front of AB.
On the way to the reading lab, Mr Pritchett told Mr Hunt he wasn’t in any sort of trouble and was not actually thought to have had anything to do with the theft of money. Rather, the resource officer simply told Mr Hunt to say he didn’t do it whenever he was asked. His questioning of Mr Hunt, however, was said to be mean, telling him “11 or 12 times” that he had the authority to lock him up in jail. Mr Hunt started to show signs of crying during the interrogation.
Addressing AB and referring to Mr Hunt, Mr Pritchett at one point said, “Look at him. He’s over there, his eyes are—you know, you can tell he looks like he’s about ready to cry.” After that, AB finally admitted to taking the money, and Mr Pritchett told Mr Hunt he did “a great job.” Mr Hunt’s mother didn’t see it that way, though, and removed him from school for about 18 months following the faked interrogation.
The trial court granted Pritchett and the other state defendants summary judgment on the claim alleging a Fourth Amendment seizure violation and on other claims, but the Delaware Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s ruling. It concluded that Mr Prichett’s actions as a police officer in detaining Mr Hunt for questioning in order to pry a confession out of AB violated Hunt’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures.
In the case of Terry v Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 16 (1968), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that “Whenever a police officer accosts an individual and restrains his freedom to walk away, he has ‘seized’ that person.” The court here said a seizure occurs for Fourth Amendment purposes when “a reasonable person would have believed that he was not free to leave.” If a search or seizure is undertaken it requires either a warrant or probable cause, subject to certain exceptions.
The case of N.J. v T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985) would be well known to school district attorneys. It ruled that there’s a slightly relaxed standard of reasonableness when it comes to searches conducted in a school setting. However, Mr Hunt was not searched; he was seized. That’s different. The Third Circuit, which includes Delaware, has held that seizures in schools are only reasonable if they give “special consideration to the goals and responsibilities of our public schools.” Most people have interpreted this phrase to indicate the responsibility of controlling student discipline.
The questioning of Mr Hunt constituted a seizure by police for the following reasons, the court said:
He [Hunt] was called to the Vice Principal’s office and was escorted there by a teacher’s aide. Outside the office, Pritchett met Hunt and walked with him into the reading lab. Pritchett was in uniform, carrying a gun, handcuffs, and other indicia of police authority. Pritchett then met with AB and Hunt in the reading lab for close to one hour. For some period of time, the door to the reading lab was closed. Hunt was eight years old. Pritchett never told Hunt that he could leave the reading lab, and Pritchett admitted that he did not expect Hunt to leave. Based on these facts, a reasonable child would not believe he was free to leave the room. … Pritchett brought Hunt to the reading lab not to find out whether Hunt was involved in the theft, but to use Hunt to elicit AB’s confession.