Courtside: Another setback for carthage?

Phi Delta Kappan

Volumn 78, Issue 3, 1996, Pages 253-254

  Zirkel, Perry A ^a  

^a LEHIGH UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040517540     PISSN: 00317217     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (10)

1. Thompson v. Carthage Sch. Dist., 87 F.3d 979 (8th Cir. 1996). I obtained supplementary information via telephone interviews in mid-August 1996 with attorneys Jack Kearney and Paul Blume, who represented the plaintiff and the defendants respectively.
2. 115 S. Ct. 2386 (1995). For a description of this decision, see Perry A. Zirkel, "Drug Test Passes Court Test," Phi Delta Kappan, October 1995, pp. 187-88.
3. See, for example, Zirkel, op. cit.;
4. idem, "Another Search for Student Rights," Phi Delta Kappan, May 1994, pp. 728-30;
5. idem, "Stripping Students of Their Rights," Phi Delta Kappan, February 1993, pp. 498-501;
6. and idem, "Searching and Researching," Phi Delta Kappan, December 1989, pp. 330-32.
7. Technically, the Eighth Circuit's rulings with regard to both the exclusionary rule and qualified immunity are merely dicta; its ruling that the search was constitutional makes the other two matters surplus baggage.
8. The prior published decisions in the public K-12 context are sparse and split. Compare, for example, James v. Unified Sch. Dist. No. 512, 899 F. Supp. 530 (D. Kan. 1995) with Jones v. Latexo Indep. Sch. Dist., 499 F. Supp. 223 (E.D. Tex. 1980). Whether the exclusionary rule applies in juvenile delinquency proceedings is an open question, which was not answered by the Eighth Circuit. See, for example, New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325, 333 n.3 (1985). 6. In contrast with personal liability, official liability (that is, when school officials are sued as proxies for the school district) for civil rights violations requires a school district policy or custom, which in some cases is a high hurdle of proof. See, for example,
9. Gail Sorenson, "School District Liability for Federal Civil Rights Violations Under Section 1983," West's Education Law Reporter, 8 October 1992, pp. 313-31;
10. and Jeffrey Horner, "Anatomy of a Constitutional Tort," West's Education Law Reporter, 18 August 1988, pp. 1-14.