Supreme Court Declines to Decide Need for Cop Warrant in School Interviews, Says Case Is Moot

The U.S. Supreme Court is declining to decide whether police and social workers must get a warrant before interviewing a child at school about alleged sexual abuse.

The issue is moot, the Supreme Court held in a 7-2 decision (PDF).

The Fourth Amendment lawsuit had been filed on behalf of a child who was only 9 when she was interviewed by police about alleged sexual abuse by her father. Now the youth is “only months away from her 18th birthday—and, presumably, from her high school graduation,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the majority opinion. What’s more, the teen has moved to Florida and “so will never again be subject to the Oregon in-school interviewing practices whose constitutionality is at issue."

Because the issue is moot, the Supreme Court vacated a prior finding of a Fourth Amendment violation by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The 9th Circuit had said a warrant was required absent “exigent circumstances” or parental consent.

The Supreme Court did address a separate issue, however. The court held that government officials who secure a favorable judgment on immunity grounds may nonetheless ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review an adverse constitutional holding. Two concurring justices would not have reached that issue. Two dissenters would not permit review because the officials were prevailing parties based on their immunity.

The court ruled in two consolidated cases, Camreta v. Greene and Alford v. Greene.