Juvenile Justice Case Study

Arleen Gomez

Period 4

ADJU

Criminal Justice Term Paper

Introduction

There have been many juvenile justice cases in the past that serve as precedents in the cases that go through today's juvenile court system. One very important case I will be discussing is New Jersey v. T.L.O. I chose to write about this case because it deals with the rights I have as a student. The argument eventually led to an agreement and understanding of how the Fourth Amendment applies to juvenile students on campus. This case relates to the student population due to the fact that it concerns an individual right and how it applies in a school setting.

The Incident

The argument was brought forward by T.L.O, a fourteen-year-old high school student at Piscataway

Const. amend. IV). Clearly, in my opinion, T.L.O's 4th amendment right was violated. Her purse was searched without a search warrant and the contents of her purse were still used as evidence by the court. However, The Supreme Court gave understandable reasons as to why the search was

if the official has reasonable suspicion that a crime has been or is in the process of being committed" (uscourts.gov). This meant T.L.O's 4th amendment was not in fact violated. The Appellate Division and the New Jersey State Supreme Court agreed that the 4th amendment includes school officials being able to conduct warrantless searches no matter the amount of reasonable doubt. In conclusion, the amount of probable cause does not matter when a school official conducts a warrantless search.

The Justices Involved & Ruling

There was a 6-3 decision vote for New Jersey. The search that ended with T.L.O's marijuana being found was reasonable. The majority opinion included: Warren Burger, Byron White, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell F. Jr., William Rehnquist, and Sandra Day O'Connor. The opposing Justices included: Thurgood Marshall, William J Brennan Jr., and John Paul Stevens.

Constitutional Rights in A School