IA: Def’s nervousness about his school issued equipment bag going to a certain person, its search was reasonable under T.L.O.

Defendant was a high school football player injured during a game. When he was going to the hospital, he was so overly concerned with his equipment bag that it only go to a certain person that the school administration saw red flags. They searched his school issued equipment bag and found a gun and drugs, and it was on school property. Under the T.L.O. and Acton analysis, the search was valid. State v. Lindsey, 2015 Iowa App. LEXIS 540 (June 24, 2015):

For these reasons, we conclude the school officials’ individualized search of Lindsey’s bag, albeit a school-issued bag, implicated the Fourth Amendment. Accordingly, we proceed to T.L.O.’s “reasonable grounds” standard.

On our de novo review, we agree with the district court that this standard was met. First, as a student athlete using a school-issued equipment bag, Lindsey had a lowered expectation of privacy. See Acton, 515 U.S. at 657 (“Legitimate privacy expectations are even less with regard to student athletes.”). Second, the superintendent and coach knew Lindsey was previously suspended for possession of drug paraphernalia and previously was the subject of weapons charges. While Superintendent Stanton testified he did not think about this history at the time he decided to seize the bag, constitutional reasonableness does not depend on the actual motivations of the officials involved. See Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 813, 116 S. Ct. 1769, 135 L. Ed. 2d 89 (1996). Third, Lindsey’s preoccupation with his bag in the face of his hospitalization for a serious injury would have led a reasonable person to suspect the bag contained something illicit. See generally Coffman v. State, 782 S.W.2d 249, 250 (Tex. Ct. App. 1989) (upholding search of student’s bag where student “jumped back and clutched his book bag” and later “lunged at” the assistant principal and tried to take the bag from him); In re L.L., 280 N.W.2d 343, 352, 90 Wis. 2d 585 (Wis. Ct. App. 1979) (holding suspicious behavior, together with teacher’s prior experience of finding weapons on the student’s person, provided reasonable suspicion to support search of student); but see State v. Pablo R., 2006- NMCA 072, 139 N.M. 744, 137 P.3d 1198, 1200-01, 1202-04 (N.M. Ct. App. 2006) (holding search and seizure of student found out of class not reasonable at inception, despite testimony student seemed “nervous and fidgety”).