Camreta v. Greene

Nine-year-old child, S.G., was seized and questioned in school by a social worker and a law enforcement official investigating allegations that S.G. was sexually abused by her father. Reversing the district court, the Ninth Circuit found that Fourth Amendment warrant/probable cause protections applied to S.G. because of law enforcement’s involvement in her seizure and questioning – protections that the county had failed to consider prior to removing the child from her classroom and questioning her at school.

Juvenile Law Center’s brief to the Supreme Court of the United States urged affirmance of the Ninth Circuit, arguing that none of the established exceptions to the warrant requirement—consent, exigent circumstances or a special needs exception—were present to justify a divergence from a traditional Fourth Amendment analysis. The brief also emphasized the importance of applying a strict Fourth Amendment analysis to searches and seizures that occur in schools and involve law enforcement.

On March 11, 2011, the United States Supreme Court vacated the Ninth Circuit decision, finding that the case had become moot in the interim.