Riley Does Not Displace T.L.O.: Reasonable-Suspicion Cell-Phone Searches by School Officials Remain Permissible in the Fourth Circuit

I. Introduction

In O.W. v. Marie L. Carr (4th Cir. Apr. 9, 2026), the Fourth Circuit confronted a modern variant of a familiar school-search problem: whether a school administrator’s warrantless search of a student’s cell phone remains governed by the school-search framework of New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985) after the Supreme Court’s heightened privacy analysis for phones in Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014).

The case arose after O.W., a 13-year-old middle-school student, received a sexually explicit image from a classmate and later shared it at school. Acting Assistant Principal Reid Baker questioned O.W. and searched the phone’s photo gallery; School Resource Officer Marie L. Carr then pursued a criminal investigation, leading to juvenile charges that were ultimately dismissed after a deferred disposition.

O.W. sued Mr. Baker, Officer Carr, the School Board, and the City under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging violations of the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments, plus conspiracy and Monell municipal liability. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants; the Fourth Circuit affirmed.

Key issues on appeal included: (1) whether T.L.O. authorizes warrantless student cell-phone searches notwithstanding Riley; (2) whether O.W.’s statements to the assistant principal were involuntary; (3) whether the City and officer conspired with school officials; and (4) whether municipal entities could be liable under Monell.

II. Summary of the Opinion

  • Fourth Amendment: The court held that T.L.O. governed the assistant principal’s phone search and that the search was reasonable—justified at inception and reasonable in scope.
  • Riley argument: The court ruled that O.W. waived the argument that Riley bars school officials from searching student cell phones on reasonable suspicion; in any event, the court explained why Riley does not “displace” T.L.O. in this setting.
  • Fifth/Fourteenth (voluntariness): Under a totality-of-circumstances test, O.W.’s confession to Mr. Baker was voluntary.
  • § 1983 conspiracy: The MOU and general cooperation between school officials and the SRO did not supply evidence of a “meeting of the minds” to accomplish an unlawful plan.
  • Monell: With no underlying constitutional violation established, municipal liability against the City and School Board failed.

III. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1. Student searches and reasonableness: T.L.O. and its lineage

The court treated New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985) as controlling for searches by school officials. T.L.O. replaced the usual warrant/probable-cause requirement described in cases like Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347 (1967) with a tailored, school-specific inquiry:

  1. Was the search “justified at its inception”?
  2. Was it “reasonably related in scope” and not excessively intrusive?

The opinion also reinforces that T.L.O. is part of a broader school-order jurisprudence: the court cited Safford Unified Sch. Dist. No. 1 v. Redding, 557 U.S. 364 (2009) as an example of the Supreme Court applying T.L.O. and Wofford v. Evans, 390 F.3d 318 (4th Cir. 2004) to caution against constitutional “blunt instruments” that remove disciplinary tools from educators.

2. Cell phones and privacy: Riley as a reasonableness case, not a school-search override

O.W. invoked Riley v. California, 573 U.S. 373 (2014), where the Supreme Court held that police generally need a warrant to search digital content on a phone seized incident to arrest. The Fourth Circuit emphasized that Riley turned on the mismatch between the search-incident-to-arrest rationales and digital data, and that Riley itself preserved “other case-specific exceptions.”

The court also referenced the balancing framework used in Riley (citing Wyoming v. Houghton, 526 U.S. 295 (1999) and Brigham City v. Stuart, 547 U.S. 398 (2006)) to underscore that both Riley and T.L.O. are “reasonableness” decisions—but in fundamentally different contexts (police arrest searches vs. school discipline and safety).

On the question whether “a search of a student's cellphone might require a more compelling justification,” the court cited Jackson v. McCurry, 762 F. App'x 919 (11th Cir. 2019) (unpublished). But it ultimately declined to adopt any heightened standard, holding instead that T.L.O. “directly controls this case.”

3. Coordination with law enforcement: distinguishing “special needs” and “suspicionless” programs

To escape T.L.O., O.W. relied on Ferguson v. City of Charleston, 532 U.S. 67 (2001), which invalidated a hospital/police “task force” policy of suspicionless drug testing of pregnant patients. The Fourth Circuit treated Ferguson as inapposite because it concerned warrantless, suspicionless searches—whereas the assistant principal had individualized suspicion (indeed, a report and then an admission).

The opinion also drew on T.L.O.’s own cautionary footnote about searches “in conjunction with or at the behest of law enforcement agencies,” but found the record did not show that Mr. Baker’s search was directed by the SRO or performed jointly; she “sat by,” and her later seizure of the phone did not retroactively convert the administrator’s search into police action.

4. Voluntariness of confessions: totality of circumstances and “coercive police activity”

For the Fifth/Fourteenth Amendment voluntariness claim, the court relied on a standard line of authority: Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157 (1986) (free and deliberate choice), Moran v. Burbine, 475 U.S. 412 (1986), and Fourth Circuit applications like United States v. Giddins, 858 F.3d 870 (4th Cir. 2017). It framed voluntariness under the totality test from Schneckloth v. Bustamonte, 412 U.S. 218 (1973), with special attention to juveniles per J.D.B. v. North Carolina, 564 U.S. 261 (2011) and Haley v. Ohio, 332 U.S. 596 (1948).

The court further emphasized that “truthful statements about the defendant’s predicament” generally do not make a confession involuntary, citing United States v. Braxton, 112 F.3d 777 (4th Cir. 1997), and that discomfort is not coercion, citing United States v. Holmes, 670 F.3d 586 (4th Cir. 2012) and United States v. Pelton, 835 F.2d 1067 (4th Cir. 1987). The opinion also underscored that voluntariness is ultimately a legal question, citing Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279 (1991) and Miller v. Fenton, 474 U.S. 104 (1985).

Finally, in a § 1983 context, the panel noted the limited role of Miranda warnings as a civil-rights claim after Vega v. Tekoh, 597 U.S. 134 (2022).

5. § 1983 conspiracy and Monell

For conspiracy, the governing Fourth Circuit framework came from Hinkle v. City of Clarksburg, 81 F.3d 416 (4th Cir. 1996) (citing Hafner v. Brown, 983 F.2d 570 (4th Cir. 1992)): joint action, overt act, and deprivation of a constitutional right, supported by evidence of a shared unlawful objective.

For municipal liability, the court reiterated the familiar requirement of an underlying constitutional violation, citing Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978) as applied in Hunter v. Town of Mocksville, 897 F.3d 538 (4th Cir. 2018) and Spell v. McDaniel, 824 F.2d 1380 (4th Cir. 1987).

B. Legal Reasoning

1. The Fourth Amendment holding: applying T.L.O. to a cell-phone photo search

The court’s core Fourth Amendment move was methodological: it refused to treat cell phones as categorically outside the school-search doctrine and instead performed a conventional T.L.O. analysis.

  • Justified at inception: Mr. Baker had “reasonable grounds” because a teacher reported O.W. possessed an explicit image and O.W. admitted as much—creating a concrete basis to suspect evidence would be found on the phone. The court stressed the dual character of the suspected misconduct: it violated both school rules and Virginia criminal law.
  • Reasonable scope: The assistant principal searched the phone’s photo gallery, a “likely place” for a photo. The panel treated the search as narrowly aimed at locating the image and stopping disruption and harm.

2. Rejecting “police-behest” and “joint search” reframing

A recurring theme is evidentiary discipline. The panel found no record basis to say the SRO instructed, requested, or directed the administrator’s search. It also refused to treat the SRO’s presence as enough to convert a school search into a police search; “sitting by” was not “searching in conjunction with.”

This reasoning matters because it keeps the constitutional standard tethered to who conducted the search and why, not merely to the fact that a school has a policing relationship or that criminal charges may follow.

3. Waiver and the “Riley in schools” question

The panel held that O.W. waived the argument that Riley should require warrants for school officials’ cell-phone searches by giving it only a “fleeting mention” without development, invoking waiver principles from Grayson O Co. v. Agadir Int'l LLC, 856 F.3d 307 (4th Cir. 2017) and Belk, Inc. v. Meyer Corp., 679 F.3d 146 (4th Cir. 2012). It also refused to let amici cure the waiver, citing United States v. Buculei, 262 F.3d 322 (4th Cir. 2001) (quoting Christopher M. v. Corpus Christi Indep. Sch. Dist., 933 F.2d 1285 (5th Cir. 1991)) and Amoco Oil Co. v. United States, 234 F.3d 1374.

Notably, the court did not stop at waiver: it provided an alternative merits discussion explaining why it was “hard to see” how Riley necessarily “upends” T.L.O., emphasizing the school’s unique interest in swift intervention and the reduced privacy expectations of students during the school day, including the existence of device policies.

4. Voluntariness: school questioning, juvenile status, and absence of coercion

On the confession claim, the court’s reasoning was incremental: it acknowledged O.W.’s youth (13) and lack of parental presence but found those factors did not overcome the (largely non-coercive) nature of the encounter. The questioning was daytime, relatively short, led by an assistant principal in a familiar setting; there were no threats, deprivation, or physical pressure. Statements urging honesty and noting inconsistent stories were characterized as truthful, non-coercive “predicament” talk under Braxton and related cases.

The court also defended summary judgment procedure: because voluntariness is ultimately a legal question under Fulminante and Miller, a court may decide it where the undisputed facts point to only one conclusion.

5. Conspiracy: the MOU as coordination, not an unlawful plan

The court treated the 2008 MOU as evidence of routine cooperation—reporting criminal activity to the SRO, delineating different standards (reasonable suspicion for school officials; probable cause for SRO searches), and discouraging SRO “agency” use of school officials for probable-cause-end runs. From that text, the panel found no “specific circumstantial evidence” of a shared unlawful objective required by Hinkle.

6. Monell: no underlying violation, no municipal liability

Because the court found no constitutional violations by the challenged conduct, it ended the municipal-liability inquiry: under Hunter and Spell, Monell claims fail absent an underlying constitutional deprivation.

C. Impact

1. A clear Fourth Circuit signal: T.L.O. still governs student cell-phone searches by school officials

Although the court framed part of its discussion as waiver-based, the opinion’s practical effect is precedential guidance: within the Fourth Circuit, a school official’s student cell-phone search remains analyzed under T.L.O.’s reasonable-suspicion reasonableness framework, and Riley does not categorically impose a warrant requirement in the school setting.

2. Litigation incentives and proof burdens in “school-to-police” cases

The opinion places substantial weight on the evidentiary gap between (a) coordination between schools and SROs and (b) an agreement to accomplish an unlawful constitutional deprivation. Plaintiffs alleging “workarounds” (school officials as police agents) will need concrete proof: directives, requests, contemporaneous joint searching, or other facts supporting “at the behest of” or “in conjunction with” law enforcement.

3. Confession claims: voluntariness remains context-specific, but not school-exceptional

By applying conventional voluntariness doctrine without creating a special “school interrogation” test, the court signals that juvenile/school settings affect the totality analysis (especially age) but do not automatically transform routine disciplinary questioning into unconstitutional coercion.

4. Institutional consequences: policy drafting and training

The court’s reading of the MOU suggests that carefully drafted agreements that (i) separate disciplinary from law-enforcement roles, (ii) preserve distinct constitutional thresholds (reasonable suspicion vs. probable cause), and (iii) disclaim “agency” searches, can be powerful evidence against conspiracy theories—while still allowing robust referral of potentially criminal misconduct.

IV. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Reasonable suspicion vs. probable cause: “Reasonable suspicion” is a lower threshold than “probable cause.” Under T.L.O., school officials may search based on reasonable suspicion; police generally need probable cause (often with a warrant).
  • “Justified at its inception” / “reasonable in scope”: The first asks whether there was a good reason to start the search; the second asks whether the search was limited to what was needed for that reason.
  • Voluntariness of a confession: Courts look at all circumstances—age, setting, duration, threats, pressure—to decide whether a statement was a free choice or the product of coercion.
  • Waiver on appeal: If an argument is mentioned but not meaningfully developed in the opening brief, an appellate court may treat it as waived and refuse to decide it.
  • § 1983 conspiracy: It is not enough to show cooperation or parallel action; the plaintiff must show a shared plan to achieve an unlawful constitutional deprivation.
  • Monell liability: Cities and school boards are not automatically liable for employees’ acts; liability attaches only when an official policy/custom causes a constitutional violation—and there must be an underlying violation to begin with.

V. Conclusion

O.W. v. Marie L. Carr reinforces a central doctrinal point for modern schools: in the Fourth Circuit, New Jersey v. T.L.O. remains the controlling framework for a school official’s search of a student’s property—including a cell phone—when the search is grounded in reasonable suspicion and limited in scope. The court further clarifies that routine school–police coordination (even under an MOU) does not itself establish a § 1983 conspiracy, and it reaffirms that Monell claims collapse without an underlying constitutional violation.