Court Says Probation Violations By Teen Don't Justify On-Demand Warrantless Searches Of His Electronics
from the little-bit-of-4th-and-1st-implications-all-tied-up-together dept
It's assumed (wrongly) that minors have few, if any, Constitutional rights. The error is easy to make because they're just kids. They can't drink, smoke, vote, or even serve their country/secure these own valuable freedoms by [checks sources] aiding in the increase of opium production in foreign countries. "Hundreds of government officials can't be wrong!" someone is sure to exclaim, being just as wrong as the hundreds half-assedly cited in their stinging rebuttal.
Minors do have rights. They're subject to more limitations but they're far from nonexistent. But that doesn't stop prosecutors, cops, and school officials from pretending "limited" equals "zero." A case highlighted by FourthAmendment.com shows a court pushing back against this assumption, which took the form of an overly-invasive probation condition slapped on a minor following a search of the student which uncovered a small knife, rolling papers, and a lighter.
The incident leading to the search began when the student fell asleep during class, which is possibly one of the most ordinary things a student can do. The student admitted he had smoked marijuana the night before (also possibly one of the most normal things a high school student can do), but hadn't smoked any that day or on school property. He was asked to consent to a search and he volunteered he had a knife in his possession. The search uncovered the rest of the "contraband." The 15-year-old was then arrested, detained, and placed on home detention.
Had that been the end of it, there would have been nothing to write about. But the dispositional order dealing with probation conditions added a whole bunch of unnecessary stipulations given the violation. This occurred when the minor violated his probation conditions by using marijuana and Xanax. Subsequent violations occurred -- all of them drug-related. A few months later, the minor appeared to be back on the road to the state's good graces. He was doing well in school and had landed a job. For whatever reason, the state decided to punish the minor for getting his life back together. This hearing added stipulations that appear to be far more vindictive than curative, and they're certainly anything but Constitutional. From the decision [PDF]:
In the report submitted for the September 7, 2016 dispositional hearing, without explanation, the probation officer recommended adding an electronics search condition.
[...]
Later the same day, the juvenile court judge issued a signed written disposition order, describing the electronic search condition in greater detail, using the following text, which probation had recommended: “[Minor must] submit all electronic devices under [his] control to search and seizure by the probation officer at any time of the day or night with or without a search warrant, arrest warrant, or reasonable suspicion, including all logs, text and voicemail messages, photographs, emails, and social media account contents contained on any device or cloud or internet connected storage owned, operated, or controlled by [Minor], including but not limited to cell phones, computers, computer hard drives, laptops, gaming consoles, mobile devices, tablets, storage media devices, thumb drives, Micro SD cards, external hard drives, or any other electronic storage devices. [Minor] shall also disclose any and all passwords, passcodes, password patterns, fingerprints, or other information required to gain access into any of the aforementioned devices or social media accounts as requested by any probation officer . . . .”
The minor challenged this order on constitutional grounds, citing its needless violation of his privacy. Given the state's unwillingness to specify which of the offenses these conditions addressed, the court finds the minor has a solid point.
We agree with Minor that the electronics search condition imposed here is unconstitutionally overbroad because it is not narrowly tailored to achieve its ostensible purpose or to meet Minor’s needs. [...] Any connection between Minor’s offenses and his usage of electronic devices is speculative and, absent such evidence, the electronics search condition is not tailored to meet Minor’s specific needs.
As the court points out, there are less intrusive ways of achieving the same ends and it's highly unlikely blanket search permission for every single electronic device owned by the minor is the least intrusive option. It's also unlikely blanket search permission would somehow prevent the minor from obtaining drugs or alcohol.
Not only that, but the state's arguments for this supposed necessity ignored evidence showing more probation stipulations weren't needed to keep the minor from engaging in criminal activity.
In an interview with probation before the September 2016 dispositional hearing, Minor acknowledged having made poor decisions in the past, but stated he had new motivation to complete treatment and probation going forward, and that he had a new job, which was making a positive impact on his life.
Minor’s statements about his mindset were supported by his school’s report that it had no concerns with Minor’s behavior, that Minor arrived on time, completed all of his work, was “doing great,” and was “exhibiting a positive attitude.” Minor’s mother and his treatment program provided similar accounts. This information does not support the conclusion that only by subjecting Minor to a new, exhaustive, and invasive search condition—allowing probation to review every electronic device under his control, including any “gaming consoles, mobile devices, tablets, storage media devices, thumb drives, Micro SD cards, [and] external hard drives” and to access all of his “passwords, passcodes, password patterns, fingerprints, or other [similar] information”—could Minor be deterred from future use of controlled substances.
That strikes these conditions from the minor's probationary terms, restoring the privacy the state tried to take from him. The state insisted on defending this Constitutional violation despite having zero precedential support to cite. The closest it could come to a prior case in its favor involved a gang member who promoted his gang and its activity on social media when not using those platforms to issue threats to police officers and their families. That's not even close to the same level of severity in observed behavior. As the minor notes in his case, the state AG didn't even provide evidence the minor owned any of the devices the state decided it needed access to. But when you're playing Constitutional poker with someone else's money, why not take a flier on bullshit probation orders?
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Filed Under: electronics, fifth amendment, fourth amendment, probation, probation violations, teens, warrantless searches
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'Hello fellow drug users who are, like me, not cops!'
I suspect that the reason behind this attempt at trampling his rights might have been due to someone realizing that they had a former drug user on a leash via a very friendly judge, and as such could use his accounts to try to find others to bust, possibly by using his accounts to pretend to be him, 'looking for a fix'.
After all, if it's good enough for the DEA, it's certainly good enough for the regular 'combatants' in The War on Drugs.
The alternatives are that they refused to believe that he'd changed and figured that a baseless fishing expedition of his various accounts and possessions would find something they could use to slam him with, because clearly once a user always a user, or simply 'because why not?', neither of which leave them looking any better.
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Re: 'Hello fellow drug users who are, like me, not cops!'
According to a lot of support groups this is mostly true, not specifically in always a user perspective but definitely once an addict always an addict.
I don't really subscribe to this wholesale because I suspect a lot of support groups over advance this notion to stay relevant/alive which is not necessarily a bad thing either, but some people can indeed break the addiction, it's just that there are also a lot of people that cannot break their addiction either and it is usually a safer bet to bank on people getting addicted and staying addicted than the opposite.
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Re: 'Hello fellow drug users who are, like me, not cops!'
Yet another week where I cannot hold a grudge for losing out on an "Insightful Post" award. That makes so much more sense than the ostensible pretenses that it isn't funny.
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Re: Re: 'Hello fellow drug users who are, like me, not cops!'
You can figure this stuff out watching TV Police dramas or just reading up about the war on drugs or crime in general. In fact the police using past offenders to catch other offenders is so damn old hat that... well shit I give up... go ahead be impressed. Doesn't take much these days with you guys eh?
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the flip side
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Re: Re: Re: 'Hello fellow drug users who are, like me, not cops!'
Sure, I'll take "impressed".
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Re: the flip side
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Re: Re: the flip side
You won't know before searching him.
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Nothing to write about.
Kid falls asleep and that "justifies" the Third Degree. That's something to write about.
Kid stupidly admits smoking the DKW the night before, and for some reason that justifies searching him now. That's something to write about.
A search uncovers the following items:
A pocket knife. A mundane object that everybody should carry all the time, but has been banned from schools by worthless panicky morons.
A lighter. Another mundane object.
Laws based in psychotic paranoid delusions and monkey-brain lust for punishment make possession of these mundane and/or non-illegal items an arrestable offense that gets you on probation to begin with. That's something to write about.
All of those are part of the same pattern of moronic tyrranical bullshit as the idiotic and unreasonable release condition. If you don't see the connection, you're not looking very hard.
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/s (just in case)
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So want to bet that the 'minor' had some cute friends?
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It's assumed (wrongly) that minors have few, if any, Constitutional rights.
So, kids do have Constitutional rights -- you think they'd mind telling the rest of us where they got 'em? (I've been asking around, and this country seems pretty damn dry right now. You gotta pay through the nose just to get the low-grade shit that's been cut with crap like 'national security' and 'third party doctrine' and 'good faith'...)
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Umm
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Re: Re: Re: 'Hello fellow drug users who are, like me, not cops!'
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Re: 'Hello fellow drug users who are, like me, not cops!'
Seriously, when did the USA become Stalin's Russia?
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Re: Re: 'Hello fellow drug users who are, like me, not cops!'
The knife in a school got him arrested and placed on probation, while on probation he was caught with marijuana and Xanax. That's what led to all the rest of the crap. Even if it's small, you can't have a knife at a school, it's considered a weapon now.
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Re:
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They want child porn
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ManassasDick Pic CopSuicide.
Turns out thatcop~who worked the Internet Crimes Against Insight into the US child pornography distrubution network, was a child rapist himself.
All perverts work in policing, and the sex crimes units are full of pedophiles who hide behind the badge.
Here is Copblocks archives on that case.
https://www.copblock.org/tag/dick-pic-cop/
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