Thursday, March 27, 2008

Student Tags His Pants, Loses Miranda Rights

The Boston Globe article, When school needs counter student rights, tells the story of a student who was questioned by his principal with a police officer ("school resource officer") present to "monitor" the interview.

A bit off topic, but this is why it's important for students to take a civics class and get to know their constitutional rights. If they're being accused of a crime they could be arrested for, they must have every benefit of the legal system available to them, in this case, a lawyer. In public schools, students' constitutional rights are limited to protect the learning environment (think BONG HiTS 4 JESUS (Morse v. Frederick), Bethel School District v. Fraser, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier), but schools should never ever leverage this advantage to prosecute one of their students.

According to the principal, the police officer was there to provide the same protection as a lawyer - it doesn't seem to me that this principle knows how our legal system works.

Note to writers, graffiti artists, taggers and your colleagues: IF YOU TAG YOUR CLOTHES WITH THE SAME TAG THAT YOU'VE DEFACED PROPERTY WITH, YOU'RE GOING TO GET ARRESTED. The Globe doesn't note the outcome of the pants-tagging student's questioning, so my guess is that the tag on the student's pants was never written on someone else's property.

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