All she had to say was no; and they would have had to get her parents involved. Instead, she willingly gave them the phone.
There goes your case.
To a high school student, a minor, having four people in positions of authority granted to them by The State, three school administrators and a police officer, standing there demanding that you turn over your cell phone, that could be awfully intimidating. It's not much of a stretch at all to say that she was
coerced into willingly giving up her phone.
MacArthur high school officials claim, in April, they got wind of a potentially threatening situation at the school involving a possible gun on campus, the vandalizing of two cars, and an incident of bullying. They believed Madelyn was somehow involved and had evidence on her phone.
Her father John Beaird says the Irving Independent School District violated his daughter's constitutional rights by illegally searching text messages on her phone.
"I knew they could not do it but I was kind of scared to ask for it back because you know I was like 'there were three principals and a police officer,'" Madelyn said. "I felt like a prisoner a little bit. I was pretty scared they were going to suspend me or something. I should have spoken with my dad first."
Turns out that two cars were indeed keyed on school property, but there was no gun on campus, and the suspicion of the OMG! bullying was much ado about nothing. The police did find a single text message from the girl's boyfriend regarding the keyed cars, but implicated no one and provided no evidence of anything. Because of that message, however, the police have not returned the phone nor it's data (call logs, phone book, text messages, e-mails and apps) to the girl, and said there are no plans to do so.
A person’s mobile phone is often one of their most private possessions. In it there are call logs, emails, text messages, photos, everything needed to tap into someone’s life.
The school board voted to deny the father's claim, which isn't surprising, but they did vote to reimburse the cost of the phone, which is a surprise, as that's an admission of guilt.
While students do have a certain amount of reduced rights in school (as ruled by the Supreme Court) due to the need to maintain order, the father on behalf of his daughter has a really good case for illegal search and seizure here. The school administrators say they had enough probable cause, but if that's true, then obtaining a warrant should have been no problem, and there is zero reason to offer to reimburse the cost of the phone. Within a few minutes of reading text messages it became clear that the girl was not involved as the school had suspected, and they did not find what they were fishing for, yet the refused to return the phone, presumably because they want to fish a little deeper inter her personal life and see what they can bring up.
As bat guano goofy as the father may be, asking for a ridiculous amount of money which he'll never get, he's likely to win this one in federal court.
