In 1980 at Piscataway High School in New Jersey, a teacher had walked into a school bathroom and caught two girls smoking. At Piscataway, it was unruly to smoke anywhere other than the designated smoking area. The teacher then proceeded to escort the girls to the principal’s office where they met with the assistant vice principal, Theodore Choplick. Theodore questioned the girls about the situation. The first girl admitted to be smoking, but the second, T.L.O, denied the fact that she had been smoking at all. The assistant principal then demanded to see T.L.O’s purse and proceeded to search it. He found a pack of cigarettes and then after that, he found a box of cigarette rolling papers which made him suspect that there might be use of marijuana.…show more content… Choplick called T.L.O’s mother and the police. The mother came to the school and, at the request of the police, took her daughter to the police station. While in the police station, T.L.O admitted to selling marijuana on school grounds. As a result, the state of New Jersey brought delinquency charges against T.L.O. in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court of Middlesex County.
T.L.O tried to have the contents of her purse suppressed because the search was violating the fourth amendment. The juvenile court rejected her statement because she was caught in the school bathroom smoking, where it wasn’t allowed. For this reason, the search violated no constitutional rights. T.L.O appealed her case to the appellate division but there was found no violation of the fourth amendment, so they sent it back to the juvenile court for determination of a possible fifth amendment
T.L.O appealed her case to the Supreme Court of New Jersey, which reversed the appellate court’s decision on the violation of the fourth amendment and demanded the items in T.L.O’s purse to be suppressed the Supreme Court of New Jersey found that Choplick's search was not reasonable. Mere possession of cigarettes was not a violation of school rules; therefore, a desire for evidence of smoking in the restroom did not justify the search. In addition, the further search of the purse was not justified by the presence of cigarette rolling
