Horton v. Goose Creek Independent School District

Searches conducted of students by school officials made without a reasonable suspicion were unconstitutional.

School officials and teachers have a duty to ensure that their students are safe and in an atmosphere conducive to learning. Increasingly, however, school officials find that these two goals are difficult to carry out. Students in schools across the nation have been known to bring alcohol, drugs, and even guns into schools, which threaten not only the learning environment, but also the safety of everyone within the school. School officials need to balance their desire to maintain a healthy and safe environment, however, with the fact that students are protected by the Constitution. As ruled in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), students do not "shed their constitutional rights . . . at the schoolhouse gate."

In Horton v. Goose Creek Independent School District, the efforts of school officials to maintain a healthy and safe learning environment, against the backdrop of drug and alcohol abuse, were weighed against the students' constitutional rights. The decision of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals illustrates that the students' Fourth Amendment rights could not be violated simply because they were on school property, despite the sympathy the court showed for school officials trying to deal with a growing alcohol and drug problem.

In 1978 the Goose Creek Independent School District in Texas brought in drug-sniffing dogs in an attempt to deal with a rampant drug and alcohol problem. The dogs were trained to detect more than 60 different controlled and over-the-counter substances. On an unannounced and random basis, dogs were taken to all of the schools in the district to sniff the students' lockers and cars and were brought into the classrooms to sniff the students themselves. If a dog indicated that a car or locker had an illegal substance, the student was required to open the locker or vehicle for a search. If the dog indicated a student was carrying an illegal substance, he or she was brought into the school office to be searched.

Three students, Robby Horton, Heather Horton, and Sandra Sanchez, speaking for all of the students, sued the school district. They claimed that the dog searches violated their Fourth Amendment rights to be free from illegal searches and seizures, as well as their Fourteenth Amendment rights that assured they would not be deprived of their liberty and property without due process.

All three of the students had been subjected to searches and claimed that they were disruptive and embarrassing. For example, Heather Horton described what happened when a dog entered her classroom to sniff for drugs and alcohol:

Well, we were in the middle of a major French exam and the dog came in and walked up and down the aisles and stopped at every desk and sniffed on each side all around the people, the feet, the parts where you keep your books under the desk.

Horton described her fear of large dogs and how it interrupted her concentration for her test. Although the dog did not indicate that Heather Horton was carrying any illegal substances, the dogs did react to both Sandra Sanchez and Robby Horton. School officials searched Sanchez's purse without her consent and searched Horton's pockets, socks, and pant legs. No illegal substances were found on either person, and they were deeply embarrassed by the search.

Initially, the case was decided in favor of the school district. The case was appealed, however, to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. With the facts of the case laid out before them, the court divided their decision into two parts. First, they would decide whether the dogs could sniff the students' cars and lockers for drugs, and second, whether they could sniff the students themselves. The judges would decide whether either of these actions violated the students' Fourth Amendment rights--the right to be free from unreasonable searches.

The court ruled that the dogs could sniff the students' lockers and cars without violating their Fourth Amendment rights. Because the lockers and cars were unattended and in public view, the court ruled that it was not a search to have the dogs sniff these objects. If the dogs were not conducting a technical search, the students could not possibly have their Fourth Amendment rights broken.

The court ruled, however, that the dogs could not sniff the students. First, the judges found that the dogs "sniffing around each child, putting his nose on the child and scratching and manifesting other signs of excitement in the case of an alert--is intrusive." Because the dogs intruded on the students' bodies, the judges ruled that the case was a search according to the Fourth Amendment.

Second, the judges found that not only was it a search to have the dogs sniff the students, but it was also unreasonable. The officials conducting the search did not have any individual suspicion that a particular student was carrying drugs or alcohol. As such, it was unreasonable to search all of the students and subject them to an intrusive, and even offensive experience, with no cause.

In the case of Horton v. Goose Creek Independent School District the court upheld the constitutional rights of the students. But in the years that followed many decisions were made in favor of school officials. As in the case of Smith v. McGlothilin (1997), a vice principal made a group of students caught smoking on school grounds empty their pockets and purses. When the search of one girl yielded three knives, she was turned over to the police. Ultimately the actions of the vice principal were upheld. Clearly, when administrators are able to substantiate a "reasonable suspicion" and keep the scope of the search limited, courts rule in favor of the schools.