Page 86 - Juvenile Practice is not Child's Play

XX.

Statements the fruit of illegal seizure

F.L. was illegally arrested and searched without an arrest warrant. Warrantless seizures are considered “per
se” unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment – subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated
exceptions.” Katz, 389 U.S. at 357. Absent a warrant, the government bears the burden of establishing that the arrest of

a client fell within one of the time-honored exceptions to the warrant requirement. Id. In this case, the arresting
officer did not have a warrant to seize and search F.L. at school. Because the government cannot justiy the warrantless
seizure, all subsequent statements made by F.L. during custodial interrogation must be suppressed under the

exclusionary rule. See Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 484-86 (1963).

The officer did not have probable cause to arrest and search F.L. Should the police act without an arrest warrant, it is
the government’s burden to prove that police conduct was justified and that there was sufficient evidence for probable

cause. See id., 442 U.S. 200. “Probable cause exists where ‘the facts and circumstances within their [the officers’]
knowledge and of which they had reasonably trustworthy information are sufficient in themselves to warrant a man
of reasonable caution in the belief that an offense has been or is being committed.” Brinegar v. United States, 338 U.S.

160 (quoting Carroll v. United States, 267 U.S. 132, 162 (1925)).

Under the totality of the circumstances, the arresting officers had no probable cause to search F.L. in this case. The

resource officer approached F.L. after receiving an anonymous tip. The anonymous tip did not provide the officer
with reasonable articulable suspicion to search F.L. or seize his possessions. A student has a legitimate expectation of
privacy both in his person and in the personal possessions he carries, and the legality of a search or seizure by school
officials will be evaluated based upon reasonableness. New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 336, 340-42 (1985). Although

T.L.O. allows for a lower standard of “reasonableness” for searches by school officials, even that lower standard of
reasonableness was not met in this case. The vague anonymous tip provided at some unknown time without specific
details regarding the suspect could not provide reasonable grounds for search by the school principal. More

important, the lower standard for justification of a search only applies to a search by school officials, not by the local
police department. In this case, although the principal was present, the uniformed School Resource Officer, who was
employed by the local police department, conducted the search and seizure. The police must be held to the higher
standard of probable cause, which was not satisfied here.

An anonymous tip alone “seldom demonstrates the informant’s basis of knowledge or veracity” and can provide
reasonable suspicion only if it is reasonably corroborated. Florida v. J.L., 529 U.S. 266, 270 (2000). Reasonable
suspicion must be based on what the officers knew before they conducted the search, and the fact that the allegation

subsequently proved to be correct does not provide reasonable suspicion. Id. at 271. The anonymous tip received by