Isiah B. v. State

In 1990 Madison High School in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, began having problems with guns on campus. In just over one month, the school had to investigate five or six incidents involving guns at the school. For example, one Friday evening after a football game, students were shot at. Also, a riot nearly occurred when gunshots rang out one Saturday evening as students were leaving a school dance. The following Monday, tensions at the school were high because there were rumors that a shootout would occur that day at school. Due to the substantial risk of imminent harm to the students, school officials conducted random searches of student lockers. Milwaukee’s public school system had a handbook that contained a written policy providing that the school system owned the school lockers and could inspect them as deemed necessary. In fact, the schools had master keys for the lockers, and students were not allowed to use their own private locks on their school lockers. Parents and students were given the policy. Isiah B. (plaintiff) had a gun and cocaine inside a coat pocket in his locker, which security personnel found during the random search. Later, a petition to adjudicate Isiah as a delinquent child was filed, citing possession of a firearm on school grounds and possession of cocaine with the intention to deliver the drug. Isiah filed a motion in circuit court to suppress both the gun and the cocaine as the fruit of an unlawful search. The circuit court rejected the motion and rendered a judgment of delinquency. Isiah appealed, alleging that school officials violated the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Wisconsin’s constitution by randomly searching his school locker. The state (defendant) argued that there was no search for Fourth Amendment purposes, because Isiah did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the school locker.