Did mom violate wiretap law by recording coach's locker-room speech? Top Texas court to decide
A Texas mom who secretly recorded a coach’s locker-room comments to students is asking Texas’ top criminal court to rule she didn’t violate the state’s wiretap law.
The mom, Wendee Long, had suspected the girls’ basketball coach at Argyle High School north of Fort Worth was verbally abusing students, the Austin American-Statesman reports. She sought proof by having her daughter tape an iPhone inside a locker to record the coach’s comments at halftime and after a game in February 2012. The daughter was no longer on the team at the time.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals heard oral arguments on Wednesday.
A trial judge had sentenced Long to three years of probation for violating the law, which permits recordings with the consent of only one party to a conversation. If a team member had taped the speech, there would be no legal violation, prosecutors say.
An appeals court overturned Long’s conviction, finding that the coach had no reasonable expectation of privacy while acting as a public school teacher providing instruction to students. In oral arguments on Wednesday, Judge Elsa Alcala of the Court of Criminal Appeals agreed with that view.
“I don’t think any conversation between a student and coach is private,” Alcala said. “A parent or anybody else has the right to hear all of those communications.”
The lawyer for the state, John Messinger, argued that the concerned parent could have taken action other than breaking the law. He pointed out that the recordings showed no verbal abuse by the coach. He also told the court that locker rooms are inherently private places. “You can’t go into a locker room with a camera just because somebody is coaching,” he said.
The case is Long v. Texas.
