Scanlon v. Las Cruces Public Schools
The New Mexico Court of Appeals has ruled that a school hearing authority did not improperly consider evidence seized in a search of a student’s car, even if the search violated the student’s Fourth Amendment rights, because the rule excluding such evidence does not apply to school disciplinary hearings. The court also ruled the student’s right to procedural due process was not violated when he was barred from cross-examining students who had told school officials the illegal drugs they were using belonged to him. Jarrett Scanlon was a student at Las Cruces High School when he was suspended for one year for possessing marijuana and a weapon on school property. His problems began when a school groundskeeper reported four people smoking something inside Jarrett’s car in the school parking lot. School employees searched the car and found marijuana in the passenger compartment and a decorative sword in the trunk. Jarrett ran away, but the other students were taken to the assistant principal’s office, where they stated that the marijuana belonged to Jarrett and that all four of them had smoked it. Jarrett and his parents were given notice that Las Cruces Public Schools (LCPS) would seek to suspend him for one year. At the suspension hearing, the assistant principal testified about what the three other students told him. The students did not testify. The three-member LCPS hearing authority found that Jarrett had violated school policies against possessing drugs and weapons and suspended him for one year. He was offered the opportunity to enroll in an alternative school.
Jarrett appealed the hearing authority’s decision to the superintendent, who affirmed. Jarrett next filed a lawsuit in state court, arguing that his procedural due process rights were violated when the hearing authority refused to allow him to cross-examine the three student witnesses. He also contended that school officials lacked the required "reasonable suspicion" to search the trunk of his car and that, even if they did have reasonable suspicion, they required either a warrant or exigent circumstances. The trial court ruled that due process did not require LCPS to permit Jarrett to cross-examine the students. But the court held that school officials lacked "probable cause" to search the trunk of Jarrett’s car, despite the fact that both sides had recognized that the lower legal standard that applies to a school search is whether officials had "reasonable suspicion" that the search would uncover evidence that the student violated school rules. Both sides appealed.
The appeals court first addressed whether the evidence produced by the search should have been excluded from the disciplinary hearing. Examining Jarrett’s claim that under New Mexico law the search of his vehicle could only be conducted without a warrant only under exigent circumstances, the court pointed out that "when a search is conducted by school officials on school grounds, the standard is the lower standard of reasonable suspicion." Even if Jarrett’s claim were correct that a warrantless search of an automobile by school officials must be justified by both reasonable suspicion and exigent circumstances, the court continued, the constitutional violation would affect the disciplinary action only if the hearing authority were prohibited from considering the evidence garnered from the search. However, "[b]ecause we conclude that the exclusionary rule does not apply in school disciplinary hearings, any violation of Jarrett’s constitutional rights would not alter the evidence before the hearing authority." The court’s rationale for why the exclusionary rule has no application in school disciplinary hearings was because the purpose of the rule under the New Mexico Constitution is not advanced in such hearings. Specifically, the rule is intended to safeguard the liberty interest of those faced with imprisonment and loss of personal freedom. By contrast, the interest at stake in a school disciplinary hearing is an unrelated interest in continuing education. As a result, the court declined to address Jarrett’s claim that the search violated his right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
Turning to Jarrett’s due process claim, the court found that procedures in place at the disciplinary hearing were constitutionally sufficient, even though they did not include the right to cross-examine students who were neither named nor testified. While the court conceded that some of the factors utilized to determine whether the procedures comport with Fourteenth Amendment due process standards favored Jarrett slightly, another factor¯the burden placed on school districts by allowing such cross-examinations¯was decisive. In addition to concerns regarding cost and efficiency, the court noted that "administrative bodies made up of school officials are simply not well suited to hold formal, technical trial-like proceedings." The court also signaled its agreement with the majority of courts that have addressed the issue that the Fourteenth Amendment allows the admission of hearsay testimony by school administrators who investigated the incident. The court also rejected Jarrett’s argument that the New Mexico Constitution affords greater due process protections than does the federal constitution.
Scanlon v. Las Cruces Public Schools