— In Arizona, the Court of Appeals of Arizona affirmed the conviction of a teacher of sexual exploitation of a minor based upon the “evidence found on (his) laptop computer” at school. The search of the computer occurred when a new teacher took over his classes. The new teacher “began looking for … lesson plans and assumed the plans were on (his) personal laptop in the classroom.” Somehow, the new teacher “successfully logged onto the computer (and) searched (the) files for the lesson plans. During the search, they opened a file folder containing sexually explicit pictures of naked children.” After notifying law enforcement, “the police visited the school. The principal gave (the) laptop to the police. The police secured the laptop and obtained a search warrant based on the information given to them. They then searched the laptop and found pornographic images of children.” The lower court upheld the search because it was started by “school employees looking for a class curriculum when they discovered the illegal images.” The police search was valid because “the police could lawfully seize the laptop based on what the co-employees discovered.” The appellate court ruled that, “the Fourth Amendment protects individuals against unreasonable searches and seizures (and) applies to a government employer or agent or a government supervisor’s search of their employees’ private property.” The rule of law applied to such searches is that “a search may fall within an exception to the warrant requirement and be permissible if the search is work-related and reasonable… (and) may be justified if it is necessary for a non-investigatory work-related purpose such as to retrieve a needed file” and reasonable in scope.” Therefore, “when the police took possession of the laptop, (the) privacy expectation had been compromised… The police did not search the laptop until they obtained a search warrant, so they did not engage in a warrantless search that exceeded the scope of the initial privacy invasion.” State v. Young
— In Florida, six years after the campus shooting, demolition starts on the Parkland school building where 17 students died. “The school was preserved largely untouched as evidence, first for the gunman’s trial and later for the trial of the school resource officer who was on duty the day of the shooting.” “A jury acquitted the officer.” “The gunman…was sentenced to life in prison.”
— In Virginia, “the Superintendent of the Loudoun County Public Schools…recommended against placing School Resource Officers (SROs) in all 62 of the district’s elementary schools…despite adding security to schools being one of the most prominent recommendations of a Blue Ribbon Panel conducted in 2023.” The Superintendent sees school security officers (SSO’s) as a more prudent choice than armed school resource officers (SRO’s).”
— In North Carolina, officials in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools and the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office and the Kernersville Police Department are revising the school safety MOU. Changes include: (1) “SROs should only get involved in more serious, egregious offenses that occur on campus, or other offenses that rise to some level of a criminal violation;” (2) if an officer sees a fight or other behavioral problem on their own, they still have a duty to act; (3) pepper spray and fogging devices should be deployed as a last resort.