Case: Harold Burbank et al. v. Canton Board of Education
Court: Connecticut Supreme Court
Date: Oct. 27
Time: 11 a.mSummary: Parents are challenging the constitutionality of searches conducted at Canton high school and middle school during which drug sniffing dogs were used to try to locate any possible drugs in lockers or parked cars.
Background: The plaintiffs are a pair of students at Canton High School and their parents, including attorney Harold Burbank, who is representing the group. They allege that the Canton Board of Education’s policy of conducting warrantless sweeps of lockers and cars on school property using drug-sniffing dogs is unconstitutional. The plaintiffs are seeking legal action to enjoin the district from conducting the searches.
Read more about the case in the Connecticut Law Tribune as one of the issues is whether the state constitution affords students greater protection than the federal constitution. The parents had lost at the trial level, with the judge saying, “A student simply does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the smells emanating from his or her locker or car.”