SCOTUS overturns CA9 on Warrantless CPS interrogations

The U. S. Supreme Court issued its decision today in Camreta v. Greene. Read the full decision here:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-1454.pdf

This is the 9th circuit case in which the circuit court found a Fourth Amendment violation based on a CPS worker and Sheriff's deputy's warrantless interrogation of a then 9-year-old at school. The 9th Circuit, though finding the violation, found that the official had qualified immunity since the law was unclear before. The deputy was granted cert in the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court ruled it could review the appellate court's constitutional decision, even though Camreta was the prevailing party below, based on qualified immunity. Nevertheless, the Court held the case is moot, because Greene has no continuing stake in the controversy. Consequently, it vacated the portion of the 9th Circuit opinion that imposed the warrant requirement.

Justice Kagan wrote the majority opinion in which Roberts, Scalia, Ginsberg and Alito joined. Scalia wrote a concurring opinion. Sotomayor, joined by Breyer wrote an opinion concurring in the result, but opining that the court should have decided only that the case was moot and vacated the judgment below. Kennedy, joined by Thomas, wrote a dissent concluding that Camreta as a "prevailing party" should not have been permitted to appeal the constitutional decision below, which he describes as "obiter dictum".

Thanks to the NACC yahoo group for notice of and the link to the decision and to members of the group for the concise summary quoted above.

Student Arrested For Classroom Texting

When you put cops in schools, school discipline issues become police issues.

According to the The Smoking Gun "A 14-year-old Wisconsin girl who refused to stop texting during a high school math class was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct ..." Read the rest of the story, including the 5 page police report here.

See also SchooltoPrison.org "Challenging the School to Prison Pipeline".

Supreme Court to hear school strip search case

As reported here, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear Safford (AZ) Unified School District's appeal of the Ninth Circuit's reversal of the dismissal of Savana Redding's suit against it for strip searching her to look for ibuprofen when she was a 13-year-old honor student with no history of discipline issues at her middle school.

I hope SCOTUS isn't taking the case in order to overturn the Ninth Circuit. The July 11, 2008, Opinion of nine of the eleven appeals court judges who heard the case details the Constitutional basis for holding the school personnel responsible for their unreasonable violation of the privacy and person of the 13-year-old student.

The Ninth Circuit held that

[T]he public school officials who strip searched Savana acted contrary to all reason and common sense as they trampled over her legitimate and substantial interests in privacy and security of her person.

It would be a shame if parents had to worry more about schools abusing their children than the "evils" that Safford U.S.D.'s officials say they want to protect our children from.

DSS Reform Bill

Massachusetts House Bill 4191 An "Act Relative to Child Abuse and Neglect" is scheduled for public hearing tomorrow (9/26/07, 10:30 a.m. in room 222) by the Legislature's Joint Committee on Children, Families and Persons with Disabilities.

Though the bill fixes several of the issues of lack of real oversight highlighted by the Haleigh Poutre case, too much of the lack of oversight, dearth of definitions, confusing language and lack of due process for families in the current statute are left essentially untouched. What tries to look like major overhaul of the whole statutory scheme is really just a minor tune up of a small portion of what really affects families involved with the child protection system.

I am afraid that passage of the bill in its entirety will make it appear that thoughtful consideration was given by the legislature to the troubling issues that are really not addressed.

I call on Senator Spilka, Rep. Coakley-Rivera and the rest of their committee to recommend passage of the new oversight and second opinion provisions of H. 4191 but to remove the portions that merely restate the existing sections of chapter 18B and 119 until a comprehensive review and restructuring particularly recognizing parents' rights, due process, probable cause and true judicial oversight of DSS or the Department of Children and Families can be accomplished.

It's not KidLaw but I couldn't resist

After seeing this post from my friend and colleague Atty. Marie Saccoccio on the MassPrivateCounsel yahoogroup (for criminal and other defenders), I couldn't resist posting it here. (Sorry I don't know Marie's original source, so I can't cite it right now.)

Los Angeles County, California v. Rettele, 550 U.S. ___ (#06-605 , decided May 21, 2007)

"When the Court gets jittery, it reaches for its equivalent of a nicotine patch to calm its nerves: a good old per curiam summary reversal of the Ninth Circuit. Everyone on First Street is a little calmer after Monday.

"The plaintiffs in this case, who are white, sued under § 1983 after officers mistakenly searched their home looking for 4 black suspects. Turns out the plaintiffs had bought the home from the suspects shortly before the police got their search warrant.

"Just as it only rains when you forget your umbrella, going to sleep naked more or less guarantees that the cops will arrive that night. And so it was here. The officers rousted the plaintiffs out of the bed and forced them to make like Greek statues for 3 minutes (but probably minus the placid expressions on their faces), while police searched the rest of the house.

"The CA9 found that this treatment unnecessarily denuded the plaintiffs of their dignity and therefore their Fourth Amendment rights. Proving that turnabout is fair play, the CA9 stripped the officers of their qualified immunity. The court of appeals reasoned that once the officers saw the white occupants of the house, they should have known they had the wrong house and stopped the search.

"It took the Court 7 pages to set the law aright. Police may reasonably detain a house’s occupants during a search, to protect officer safety and the integrity of the search. Here, they did not have to abandon their search simply because they encountered persons of a different race than the suspects—“the presence of some Caucasians in the residence did not eliminate the possibility that the suspects lived there as well.”

"This was the rare case in which the CA9 was not politically correct enough, for the Court had to instruct that “it is not uncommon in our society for people of different races to live and work together”, or for that matter, to commit crimes together.

"Finally, the plaintiffs’ brief au naturel detention was reasonable because the suspects were believed to be armed and could have been hiding a gun under the bed covers. There was no allegation that the police left plaintiffs unclothed any longer than necessary to secure the room.

"JPS (+RBG) penned a two-page concurrence in the judgment, blasting the CA9 for issuing a hotly contested 2-1 decision as an unpublished opinion (a well-known CA9 tactic for hiding summary reversal candidates). He also restated his long-held view that the Court should not decide the constitutional merits of a case when it can more easily be resolved on qualified immunity grounds, as this one could. "