Psychology Behind Supreme Court Case - Essay Example

of the Philosophy of the Concerned 9 June Psychology behind Supreme Court Case Two High School girls in New Jersey were found smoking in the school bathrooms and subsequently they were escorted to the office of the vice principal. One of these two girls referred to as T.L.O. simply denied that she was actually smoking. To investigate this, vice principal asked T.L.O. to handover her purse to the principal. While searching her purse the vice principal found an array of unreasonable things in her purse like cigarettes, rolling papers commonly used to smoke marijuana, small amounts of drugs, ample cash and incriminating documentary evidence that proved that T.L.O.

was in the business of vending drugs in the school premises. After conducting this search and accruing much incriminating and objectionable evidence in the purse of T.L.O., the vice principal contacted the appropriate authorities and T.L.O. was subsequently arrested by them. T.L.O. sought to suppress the evidence recovered by the school authorities at her trial, claiming that this violated her Fourth Amendment rights pertaining to unreasonable search. The school authorities did say that they had a reasonable reason to conduct this search. Hence T.L.O.’s motion was totally denied by the concerned court and this evidence recovered by the school authorities was declared admissible in the court of law.

Following her conviction on the basis of the evidence recovered by school authorities from her purse, T.L.O. appealed against her in the New Jersey Supreme Court, citing the same reason that the search conducted by the school authorities violated her Fourth Amendment Rights (Slobogin 207). The New Jersey Supreme Court concluded that the search was indeed unreasonable and consequently reversed the conviction of T.L.O., setting her free. The state of New Jersey appealed against the reversal of T.L.O.

’s conviction in the US Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court ruled in favor of the State of New Jersey, by a resounding margin of 6-3, declaring that the search conducted by the school authorities was valid and thereby the exclusionary principle did not apply to the evidence presented against T.L.O. While delving on the psychology behind this Supreme Case, it does need to be mentioned that the Supreme Court thoroughly considered the claims of all the stakeholders in this particular case. The honorable Court did say that the students in the high school do have the right of privacy against unreasonable search as enshrined in the Fourth Amendment.

Yet, the court did acknowledge that when it comes to the constitutional rights of the children and the adolescents in an academic set up, their legal rights cannot be extended the same validity and potency as it is done in the case of the adult people. This is because in an academic set up schools do have the requisite duty to maintain the requisite discipline to further the educational interests of the children (McWhirter 58). Thereby the search conducted by the school in the case of T.L.O was reasonable and valid and the schools did have the requisite reasonable reasons to conduct this search.

Such searches conducted by the academic authorities do need to be evaluated with regards to the criteria of the existent circumstances and reasonableness. Works CitedMcWhirter, Darien A. Search, Seizure and Privacy. Phoenix: Oryx Press, 1994. Print. Slobogin, Christopher. Privacy at Risk. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Print.