Filed 4/10/12 by Clerk of Supreme Court
IN THE SUPREME COURT
STATE OF NORTH DAKOTA
State of North Dakota, Plaintiff and Appellee
v.
Christian Antonio Alaniz, Jr., Defendant and Appellant
No. 20110259
Appeal from the District Court of Grand Forks County, Northeast Central Judicial District, the Honorable Joel D. Medd, Judge.
AFFIRMED.
Opinion of the Court by VandeWalle, Chief Justice.
David Thomas Jones, P.O. Box 5607, Grand Forks, N.D. 58206-5607, for plaintiff and appellee.
Daniel James Borgen, 1110 College Drive, Suite 211, Bismarck, N.D. 58501, for defendant and appellant.
State v. Alaniz
No. 20110259
VandeWalle, Chief Justice.
[¶1] Christian Antonio Alaniz, Jr., appealed from an order deferring imposition of sentence entered after he conditionally pled guilty to possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia. Alaniz argues the district court erred in denying his motion to suppress evidence because there was not probable cause to justify the search of his person and the exception to the probable cause requirement for warrantless searches by school officials did not apply. We affirm.
I
[¶2] Troy Vanyo is a police officer with the Grand Forks Police Department and is assigned to work as a school resource officer at a high school in Grand Forks. Vanyo testified he works full time at the high school during the school year and the school district pays $42,000 per year to the police department to help fund three school resource officers.
[¶3] On February 17, 2011, Vanyo had received information about possible drug use involving students in an area approximately a block and a half from the high school. Vanyo testified that he and Ryan Rupert, a school security guard, decided to pay extra attention to the area. Rupert patrolled the area on foot and saw two students acting suspiciously. One of the students was later identified as Alaniz. Rupert notified Vanyo about his observations and Vanyo drove in his patrol car to the area where Rupert saw the students. Vanyo saw the two students Rupert had contacted him about and Rupert advised Vanyo the students were attempting to evade Rupert. The students walked to a town square area and Vanyo followed in his patrol car. Vanyo testified the students were seated when they saw him, stood up, and quickly walked toward a stage area in the town square. Vanyo told Rupert of the students’ location and Rupert said he would investigate further. Vanyo returned to the high school and Rupert advised Vanyo that he was behind the stage area and he smelled something “funny.”
[¶4] Vanyo waited for the students to return to the high school, and he notified the associate principal when the first student returned. Later, Vanyo observed Alaniz waiting to talk to the attendance secretary and he informed the school principal that Alaniz was the other individual he observed in the town square and suspected was involved in drug activity. The principal took Alaniz into a detention room and Vanyo followed them. Vanyo testified the principal questioned Alaniz, Vanyo testified he told Alaniz something like “if you have anything on you, you need to lay it on the table now,” and Alaniz emptied his pockets, which contained a glass pipe and synthetic marijuana. Vanyo arrested Alaniz and transported him to the Grand Forks County Correctional Center. Vanyo testified the questioning and arrest lasted approximately five minutes.
[¶5] Alaniz was charged with possession of a controlled substance, a class C felony, and possession of drug paraphernalia, a class C felony. Alaniz moved to suppress the evidence, arguing the police failed to advise him of his rights under
Miranda v. Arizona
,
II
[¶6] Alaniz argues the district court erred as a matter of law in finding that the school official exception to the probable cause requirement for warrantless searches applies because the investigation occurred off of school property by a police officer in his squad car, Vanyo was acting as a city police officer and not a school official, and the search was conducted at the behest of the police investigation. Alaniz contends there was not probable cause justifying the search and it violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
[¶7] We will affirm a district court’s decision to deny a motion to suppress unless, after resolving conflicting evidence in favor of affirmance, there is insufficient competent evidence fairly capable of supporting the court’s findings or the decision is contrary to the manifest weight of the evidence.
City of Dickinson v. Hewson
,
[¶8] Under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, an individual has a right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. In
New Jersey v. T.L.O.
,
[T]he accommodation of the privacy interests of schoolchildren with the substantial need of teachers and administrators for freedom to maintain order in the schools does not require strict adherence to the requirement that searches be based on probable cause to believe that the subject of the search has violated or is violating the law. Rather, the legality of a search of a student should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search. Determining the reasonableness of any search involves a twofold inquiry: first, one must consider whether the . . . action was justified at its inception, second, one must determine whether the search as actually conducted was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place.
Id.
at 341 (quotations and citations omitted). Generally, a search by a teacher or other school official is justified at its inception “when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school.”
Id.
at 342. In
Safford Unified School Dist. No. 1 v. Redding
,
In T.L.O. , we recognized that the school setting “requires some modification of the level of suspicion of illicit activity needed to justify a search,” and held that for searches by school officials “a careful balancing of governmental and private interests suggests that the public interest is best served by a Fourth Amendment standard of reasonableness that stops short of probable cause.” We have thus applied a standard of reasonable suspicion to determine the legality of a school administrator’s search of a student, and have held that a school search “will be permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not exceedingly intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.”
. . .
Perhaps the best that can be said generally about the required knowledge component of probable cause for a law enforcement officer’s evidence search is that it raise a “fair probability” or a “substantial chance” of discovering evidence of criminal activity. The lesser standard for school searches could as readily be described as a moderate chance of finding evidence of wrongdoing.
(Citations omitted).
[¶9] However, the holding in
T.L.O.
was limited to searches conducted by school authorities acting alone and on their own authority. The Court stated, “[t]his case does not present the question of the appropriate standard for assessing the legality of searches conducted by school officials in conjunction with or at the behest of law enforcement agencies, and we express no opinion on that question.”
T.L.O.
,
[¶10] Other courts have addressed this issue and have held there are three categories of school searches based on the amount of police involvement: (1) when school officials initiate the search or police involvement is minimal, the reasonableness standard applies; (2) when the search involves school resource officers acting on their own initiative or at the direction of other school officials to further educationally related goals, the reasonableness standard applies; and (3) when “outside” police officers initiate the search, warrant and probable cause requirements apply.
See, e.g.
,
T.S. v. State
,
[¶11] In determining how much police involvement occurred and which standard applies, courts have considered various factors, including whether the officer was in uniform, whether the officer has an office on the school campus, how much time the officer is at the school each day, whether the officer is employed by the school system or an independent law enforcement agency, what the officer’s duties are at the school, who initiated the investigation, who conducted the search, whether other school officials were involved, and the officer’s purpose in conducting the search.
See
T.S.
, at 369-71;
Burdette
, at 740;
R.D.S. v. State
,
[¶12] In this case, the district court denied Alaniz’s motion to suppress, ruling Vanyo was not an outside officer, he was more like a school official, the school-official exception to the probable cause requirement for warrantless searches applied, and therefore Vanyo only had to have reasonable suspicion Alaniz was violating the law or a school rule before the search. The court ruled the search was justified at its inception based on the students’ initial suspicious behavior, the students’ attempt to evade Rupert, the students’ actions in quickly walking away from Rupert, and Rupert’s smell of a “funny” odor. The court also ruled the search was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances justifying interference in the first place. The court concluded there was reasonable suspicion to support the search.
[¶13] The district court did not explicitly decide whether there was a search in this case, but the State did not argue the events in this case did not constitute a search. For purposes of this opinion we will treat the actions as a search. Cases involving school searches are fact specific, and under the circumstances of this case, the relevant facts support application of the reasonableness standard. Vanyo did not initiate the investigation; rather, he was contacted by Rupert after Rupert saw two students acting suspiciously. Vanyo is a school resource officer, the school district pays the police department to fund the resource officer program, and Vanyo is assigned to the school full time during the school year. One of the goals of the resource officer program is to provide a clean, safe, and secure learning environment by providing school security and preventing criminal acts on the school campus. After Vanyo returned to the school, he saw Alaniz standing in line to talk to the attendance secretary, he identified Alaniz as one of the students he observed acting suspiciously, and he informed the principal about what he saw and let the principal decide how to handle the situation. The principal removed Alaniz from the line and questioned him in the detention room. Vanyo was not involved in questioning Alaniz, except for telling Alaniz he should put anything he had on his person on the table.
[¶14] In other cases with similar facts, courts have held the reasonableness standard applies. In
D.L.D.
,
[¶15] Vanyo, like the officer in D.L.D. , was a school resource officer, who was working with other school officials to investigate violations of school rules and the law to maintain a safe and educational environment. Vanyo also advised the principal of the situation and let the principal decide what to do. The facts in this case are similar to those in D.L.D. , and support application of the reasonableness standard.
[¶16] However, Alaniz argues this case is similar to
F.P. v. State
,
[¶17] To determine whether a search was reasonable, we must consider whether the search was justified at its inception and whether the search was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances that justified the interference in the first place.
T.L.O.
,
[¶18] Here, Rupert observed two students in an area where drug activity had been reported and the two students acted suspiciously, attempted to evade him, and walked to another location. Vanyo also observed the students and the students walked away when they saw him in his patrol vehicle. Rupert went to the location where Vanyo had observed the students and Rupert smelled a “funny” odor. The students returned to the school shortly thereafter. Based on these facts, the search was justified at its inception because there was a moderate chance the search would turn up evidence Alaniz was violating the law or school rules by possessing controlled substances.
[¶19] The search also was not excessively intrusive in light of Alaniz’s age, gender, and nature of the suspicion. Alaniz was eighteen years old. He was not physically searched. Alaniz emptied his pockets after Vanyo told him he should put anything he had on the table. We conclude the search was reasonable and the district court did not err in denying Alaniz’s motion to suppress.
III
[¶20] We affirm.
[¶21] Gerald W. VandeWalle, C.J.
Dale V. Sandstrom
Daniel J. Crothers
Mary Muehlen Maring
Carol Ronning Kapsner