Search and Seizure of Students

North Atlanta High School is a public high school in Atlanta, Georgia. Drug and alcohol abuse is not uncommon among the student body. In 2018, two junior students, Carly and Cat Jimenez, aged 17, were caught smoking cigarettes in the school bathroom. Mrs. Shawna Lowland, the AP Government teacher, walked into the bathroom after smelling the smoke from down the hall. She took the students to the principal’s office to be dealt with. This was not a first time disciplinary offense for the girls and, combined with a circulating reputation for drug involvement, the principal, Mrs. Stevie Spellwoman, decided to take drastic action to insure their guilt. Her suspicion and the rude demeanor of the girls when asked for further information led the principal to conduct a strip search of their lockers and cars and confiscate their backpacks for further examination. The girls never formally consented to the search, nor were their parents notified beforehand. Hidden in the lining of the backpacks were 20 grams of marijuana, possibly synthetically contaminated. Inside the girls’ lockers were baggies with traces of cocaine and crumpled dollar bills. The principal then took to the web for more evidence. Though the girls’ instagram accounts were locked for the private viewing of accepted followers, the principal used the account of another student, with that student’s permission, to look at the profiles. Upon the profiles were posted images of lines of cocaine, various pieces of obvious drug paraphernalia, advertisements of vaporizor products such as JUULs, indicating an intent to distribute, and pictures of the girls smoking cigarettes with the school logo on their sweatshirt. An anonymous student, claiming to be an acquaintance of the girls, turned over saved snapchat videos of the girls partaking more illegal activities like underaged drinking and marijuana use. The students were expelled from the school, and this infraction was placed on their permanent record for other schools to view. The girls and their parents took the county Education Department to court, claiming that this incident is a violation of their 4th amendment rights, and that the information that they claim was obtained illegally should be thrown out and the case should be scoured from their record.