The Department of Justice filed a Statement of Interest in S.R. & L.G. v. Kenton County, et al, in federal court in the Eastern District of Kentucky. The case may have implications in cases in which your juvenile clients have had contact with a School Resource Officer (SRO) that led to unreasonable seizure (i.e., handcuffing) and/or the use of excessive force. The plaintiffs in this case are two elementary school children – named in the complaint as eight-year-old third grader S.R. and nine-year-old fourth grader L.G. – who allege that an SRO violated their rights under the Fourth and 14th Amendment and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) when the SRO handcuffed them in school, behind their backs, above their elbows, and at their biceps, after the children exhibited conduct arising out of their disabilities. Beyond a discussion of the appropriateness of such a seizure, the SOI lays out the Department’s expectations of any student-SRO interaction and the legal reasoning behind them.
The Department’s SOI provides the court with a framework to assess the plaintiffs’ claim. The SOI is divided into three sections:
· First,
the Department calls for the need to appropriately delineate the roles and
responsibilities of SROs and for specialized training. Specifically, the
Department states that SROs should not enforce the school code of conduct or
engage in routine discipline of students, but rather should only be focused on
addressing and preventing serious, real, and immediate threats to the physical
safety of the school and its community.
· Second,
the Department outlines the appropriate standard for evaluating the
legality of the SRO’s seizure of the children under the Fourth Amendment: the
court must consider whether an objectively reasonable officer would have seized
the children by handcuffing them for their misbehavior, considering the
totality of the circumstances.
· Third,
the Department argues that the ADA applies to interactions between SROs and
children with disabilities. Accordingly, SROs must reasonably modify their
practices when needed to interact with students disabilities to avoid
disability-based discrimination.
The Statement of Interest is attached and the press release is available here: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-files-statement-interest-kentucky-school-handcuffing-case.
