Dormitory Rooms

Dormitory rooms figure in numerous instances of Fourth Amendment litigation. A campus drug bust led to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Washington v. Chrisman, 455 U.S. 1 (1982), that under the Fourth Amendment an officer who was lawfully in a dormitory could seize evidence in plain view. Then the case returned to the Washington State Supreme Court for clarification; in Washington v. Chrisman, [Page 220]676 P.2d 419 (1984), the court confirmed its earlier finding that the officer's warrantless entry violated the state constitution. The state high court's disposition of the case illustrates the “new judicial federalism,” whereby state constitutional rights supplement the U.S. Constitution.

January 21, 1978, was party night at Washington State University (WSU). A WSU police officer observed student Carl Overdahl leaving a dormitory carrying a gin bottle. Suspecting Overdahl was under age, Officer Daugherty detained him and asked for identification. Overdahl replied his ID was in his dorm room. After arriving at Overdahl's room, Officer Daugherty, while standing in the doorway, saw Overdahl's roommate, Neal Martin Chrisman, hurriedly hide something. Officer Daugherty also spotted marijuana seeds and a pipe on a desk. His observations prompted him to enter and search the room. He seized three small bags of marijuana and $112 in the box Chrisman had hidden, as well as more marijuana and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). Following failure of his pretrial motion to suppress this evidence, Chrisman was convicted on two felony counts of possessing controlled substances.

The Washington Court of Appeals affirmed Chrisman's conviction, upholding the search's legality. Subsequently, the Washington Supreme Court reversed under the U.S. Fourth Amendment. It suppressed all evidence, holding that a pipe and marijuana seeds were not “exigent circumstances” authorizing Officer Daugherty's search and seizure. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected what it characterized as the Washington Supreme Court's “novel reading” of the Fourth Amendment. Chief Justice Warren Burger concluded:

The matter did not end with the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling. Chrisman filed a motion with the Washington Supreme Court requesting clarification of its previous holding in State v. Chrisman, 619 P.2d 971 (1980), in light of Article 1, § 7 of the Washington Constitution, which reads: “No person shall be disturbed in his private affairs, or his home invaded, without authority of law.” The Washington Supreme Court stood “by the conclusion in our first decision … [which we now base] on [those] ‘bona fide separate, adequate, and independent grounds’” (quoting Michigan v. Long, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1201, 1214 [1983]).

Numerous other court decisions have addressed the constitutionality of dormitory room searches, triggering application of various Fourth Amendment doctrines or concepts, including plain view, inevitable discovery, and exigent circumstances.

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