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The state Supreme Court upheld the searches under student safety plans, but did not conclude how long the plans may be in effect before they become unreasonable.
DENVER — The Colorado Supreme Court agreed on Monday that Denver Public Schools personnel acted constitutionally when they searched a student’s backpack without a warrant or suspicion of wrongdoing, but instead pursuant to a “safety plan” created after his prior criminal conduct.
The case appeared to be the first to address how the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures applies to students when school officials’ actions are based on an agreed-upon, but open-ended framework subjecting a student to searches.
> Video above: Dozens of students on pat down policy 1 year after shooting at East High
Without saying how long a safety plan could remain in effect before it became unreasonable, Justice Melissa Hart concluded in the March 25 opinion that a safety plan in existence for one year gave reasonable grounds for administrators to search a student identified as J.G.
“A search carried out in accordance with a previously established safety plan is reasonable at its inception because the plan diminishes the student’s expectation of privacy,” she wrote. “Additional individualized suspicion stemming from the student’s behavior is not required. Therefore, the search of J.G.’s backpack was justified at its inception.”
While J.G.’s appeal to the state Supreme Court was pending, safety plans came under scrutiny after police said an East High School student shot two administrators during a routine search pursuant to his own safety plan.
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