Case Against Self Discrimination

This case is fundamentally about rights against self-incrimination. There are a few facts that have been shared with the court assembled today that guided the decision made, firstly, “English teacher Carol Bergin...observed that her student 11th grader Emily Rosecrans was slow to answer questions in class and staring off into space. When questions, the student was slow to respond but said she felt ill” (p.1, paragraph one). Another fact of note was, “Miller brought five of the students from the list separately into his office and told them that he had information about their drug use and that they would be suspended if they did not confess where their drugs came from” (p.1, paragraph two). But why do these facts matter? Firstly, a teachers job isn’t to make medical assumptions about a student, there are a variety of reasons besides drugs that a student might be staring off into space and feeling ill, perhaps she had a stomach bug?

Bergin nor Mr. Miller sent the student in question to the nurse, or better to a doctor in order to get an actual medical opinion. One teacher's educated guess is not valid enough reason to justify violating a student's right to privacy and their fourth amendment rights, by searching through their bag. Furthermore, they used the evidence they gained from a search of her bag to warrant bringing the five students suspected of her selling drugs to and attempting to get confessions from them, in clear violation of her fifth amendment rights against self-incrimination. They used illegally obtained evidence against her. Mapp V. Ohio is a clear example of a case where conducting an abrupt, illegal search means that evidence cannot be used against them. In this case, Dollree Mapp’s conviction for possession of material deemed obscene was overturned because of an illegal search