When Jerry F. Barnes, the state's attorney for Carroll County, first floated the idea of using dogs to search schools for drugs last year, the impression was left that these would be warrantless sweeps. It is reassuring to know that Mr. Barnes' policy calls for obtaining a warrant before conducting any searches of student lockers or cars.
Mr. Barnes is sending out a very clear message: Ridding Carroll's schools of drugs is of paramount importance, but the effort must be done in accordance with the U.S. Constitution. This policy is a welcome and healthy change in attitude in Carroll County's drug-fighting efforts.
In his zeal to prosecute drug cases, Mr. Barnes' predecessor, Thomas E. Hickman, treated fundamental constitutional rights as impediments rather than legal guarantees against state tyranny. a result, the Carroll County Narcotics Task Force that he led routinely engaged in questionable seizures of property and had numerous criminal cases dismissed or reversed by appellate courts.
Mr. Barnes believes that a 15-year-old attorney general's opinion allows for dog searches in schools as long as they are conducted in a carefully prescribed fashion. Mr. Barnes reads this opinion very narrowly. He said that police, unlike school principals, don't have the right to open and search a locker without a warrant or the consent of the student who is using the locker.
Mr. Barnes also recognizes that the rules of evidence governing criminal prosecutions are much different from those used in an administrative hearing to judge the violation of a school drug policy. The penalties are also more severe -- fines and imprisonment -- compared with suspension or expulsion.
Being tough on drugs and obeying the Constitution are not, and cannot be, mutually exclusive actions. If warrantless searches were permitted in schools, what is to stop their use in workplaces, homes, even places of worship? Mr. Barnes appears to be cognizant of the fact that even the war on drugs, despite its laudable goal, has to follow the dictates of the Fourth Amendment.
Because the county's law enforcement efforts are designed to imprison drug dealers, not merely to arrest them, Mr. Barnes's approach ultimately will be much more successful in winning convictions than one that tramples the Bill of Rights.