Are Educators Also Police Officers? It’s Up to the Supreme Court
BY TIM WALKER
In March 2010, Ramona Whitely, a preschool teacher at a Head Start center in Cleveland, Ohio, noticed that one of her students, a 3-year-old boy (“L.C.”), had what appeared to be a bloodshot and bloodstained left eye. Whitely took a closer look at L.C. and observed what she described as “red marks, like whips of some sort” across the boy’s face.Alarmed, Whitely consulted with a colleague, Debra Jones, and together they asked L.C. how he received the marks and who, if anyone, gave them to him. The two educators, in their state-mandated role as reporters of suspected child abuse and neglect, submitted this information to law enforcement. The boyfriend of L.C.’s mother, Darius Clark, was soon arrested, charged and convicted of felonious assault, child endangerment and domestic violence.
The steps Whitely and Jones took were not particularly different from what educators across the country do in similar circumstances. They did what was necessary to protect the safety of one of their students.
But five years later, the events of that day are the focus of an important legal case,Ohio v. Clark, now in front of the United States Supreme Court.
In 2013, the Ohio Supreme Court overturned Clark’s conviction on the grounds that his Constitutional right under the Sixth Amendment to “face his accuser” (the so-called “confrontation clause”) had been violated. During the trial, L.C., a toddler, was deemed unsuitable to give live testimony. Instead, prosecutors relied on the testimony of the teachers, who recounted what L.C. had told them.
Clark’s attorneys argued that Whitely and Jones, in collecting information that helped identify the perpetrator, were acting not merely as mandatory reporters but also as law enforcement agents. As such, L.C.’s out-of-court statements to the educators should have been deemed “testimony” and therefore subject to cross-examination under the confrontation clause. The court agreed and tossed the conviction.
The state of Ohio has appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, believing that the teachers’ valuable role as mandatory reporters and caregivers should not be breached, a position supported by the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and the National School Boards Association. In November, the three groups filed a friend-of-the-court brief.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to issue a decision in Ohio v Clark before the end of June.
How the nine justices decide Ohio v. Clark (a ruling is expected before the end of June) could have a major impact on how school staff across the country interact with students, says Jason Walta, a senior attorney in the NEA’s general counsel’s office.
“First, it could undermine the mandatory reporting scheme by infusing it with these criminal investigation requirements,” Walta explains. “It’ll make it less protective and more confusing for teachers to comply with and make them second-Are Educators Also Police Officers? It's Up to the Supreme Court - NEA Today:
