I was at school friday, and i was called to the office because aparrently the school police officers had suspision that i had bud on me. they searched my bag and didnt find anything. i had a package addressed to me in my bag, and they opened it because they said they had reason to believe i had illegal drugs on me.

now i know cops need a warrent to search my mail, but are school officers allowed to open and search my mail without a warrent, just because i brought it into the school?

i live in maine btw.

thanks guys

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Anything I say on these forums and any pictures i post are totally fake. I am just a teenage boy who has no life, and would rather spend all his time making up stories about growing, smoking and posessing weed.
Sorry if you think I am serious....

no doesnt matter they cannot do it either uy should sue them why would they haved more rights than regular police anything they find isnt admissible in court to my knowledge i would demand my shit back since they werent able to anyway call a lawyer they should tell u whether its legal but seriously i cant imagine what they did is legal

They have more rights because you are on their property first off. School is completely different than the real world.

yea thats what i figured. but i just cant find out for sure what the law is.

__________________
Anything I say on these forums and any pictures i post are totally fake. I am just a teenage boy who has no life, and would rather spend all his time making up stories about growing, smoking and posessing weed.
Sorry if you think I am serious....

yea they may but still its aginst federal law to open someonelse mail isnt it so they shouldnt been able to open it unless a dog signaled it was drugs thus proablbe cause right

If you consented you waived your rights.Otherwise,I think your personal property is your personal property...contact a lawyer.They'll know for sure.I googled and found no examples of mail being searched.

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Here's some stuff I found with different search queries.Nothing specific about student mail.
https://www.lawguru.com/cgi/bbs/mess...5334608&view=a
http://forum.freeadvice.com/other-cr...il-257740.html
http://legallad.quickanddirtytips.co...in-school.aspx
http://www.policeworld.net/vb/archiv...php?t-559.html

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In one word, that information is ...... "WRONG"

No offense Screwston, and if you would like to quote relevant law, I'd love to see it, but my guess would be that you can't. Wow, I just sounded like a dick, sorry man, I really meant no offense.

4th ammendment baby! teacher always helped me remember this by telling me a story of a cop with no thumb, reaching around my bag (four fingers).

Anyway, the way it works is thus: The security actually just act as if they were the local police officers, they have no more rights to search your stuff or detain you as the normal police do. Normally they have less rights, but that all depends on their classifacation. Some security officers are just joe schmoe, some are licensed PI's, others are actually police officers with renta cop badges, and others are off duty police officers, which it is really ends up helping or hurting you, so to play it safe always treat one as if they were a cop, avoids problems later on.

The cops, or security, only have the right to search your bag if (1) you consent, (2) have probable cause such as drug sniffing dogs, or (3) leave your bag open. There are other ways, but I don't feel like writing a book right now, so I'll move on. If you consent your an idiot, if they have probable cause then your fucked anyway. But if you left one of your zippers open, or slightly, that compartment is fair game, only because they could theoretically look inside that section and see something, it's open to the public, but closed bags are a no go for searches.

Also, if you had mail inside that bag, that is not open for searches, unless they have a warrant. If they searched it, then you can charge them with a number of different offenses. You can talk to a lawyer if you want, but right off the top of my head you have charges for unreasonable detention, unreasonable search, and tresspass to chattels (both your bag, and the mail). If you went to civil court, you could get the cops, and possibly their department and maybe the school, to pay you out a couple of hundred dollars. (Just estimating here, contact a lawyer if you are interested in pursuiting this)

So yeah, I'm baked, so I'm off. Hope that helped.

Awesome, that's good to know.+rep.

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Haha, Google is great isn't it Stoney?

I prefer getting my info from text books, legal research sites, and lawyers though. It's usually more acurate. But Google is a hell of a lot cheaper!