[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 136 (Friday, September 27, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11544-S11546]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. DORGAN (for himself, Mrs. Feinstein, Mr. Exon, and Mr. 
        D'Amato):
  S. 2140. A bill to limit the use of the exclusionary rule in school 
disciplinary proceedings; to the Committee on the Judiciary.


                     THE SAFER SCHOOLS ACT OF 1996

  Mr. DORGAN. I come to the floor, Mr. President, along with my 
colleague, Senator Feinstein, from California, to introduce legislation 
that will help keep our kids safe from gun violence in school. It is 
late in the session to do this, but I am joined in this effort by the 
Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, the Senator from Nebraska, Mr. 
Exon, and the Senator from New York, Mr. D'Amato. I want to describe 
what this legislation is and why it is necessary at this point.
  Yesterday, in the Washington Post, there was a tiny little paragraph 
at the bottom of a section called ``Around the Nation.'' It is the 
smallest of paragraphs describing the fate of a man named Horace 
Morgan. Horace Morgan was a teacher who, as reported in yesterday's 
news, was killed trying to break up a fight at a school for problem 
students in Scottdale, GA. He was fatally shot by a teenager. He had 
taught English and language arts at the De Kalb County Alternative 
School for 10 years. This teacher died of multiple gunshot wounds. A 
16-year-old student was arrested. This was not headlines. It was not 
the front section. It was not on the front page--a tiny little 
paragraph in the newspaper about a teacher being shot in school, a 
teacher named Horace Morgan dying of multiple gunshot wounds.
  The point is that it is not so uncommon that it warrants headlines in 
this country when a student shoots and kills a teacher. About 2 years 
ago, Senator Feinstein and I wrote the Gun-Free Schools Act, which is 
now law. The Gun-Free Schools Act says there shall be zero tolerance on 
the issue of guns in schools--no excuses, no tolerance. Guns do not 
belong in schools. Schools are places of learning. Students cannot 
bring guns to school to threaten other students. Bring a gun to school 
and you will be expelled for 1 year--no tolerance, no excuses, no ifs, 
ands or buts. No guns in schools. Bring a gun, you are expelled for a 
year. That is now the law.
  A week ago yesterday, I came to the Senate floor and again spoke on 
the issue of guns in schools. I did this because, as I was shaving in 
the morning getting ready for work, I heard a news piece on NBC 
television that so infuriated me I wanted to address it right away. The 
news story was about an appellate court in New York that had ruled a 
student who brought a gun to school should not have been expelled for a 
year because the security aide who found the gun did not have 
reasonable suspicion to search the student.
  The facts of this case made me so angry because it simply stands 
common sense on its head. In 1992, Juan C. was stopped by a school 
security aide who said he saw a bulge resembling the handle of a gun 
inside Juan's leather jacket. The aide grabbed for the bulge, which was 
indeed a loaded .45 semiautomatic handgun.
  Juan was expelled for school for one year. This internal disciplinary 
action is consistent with the requirements of the Gun-Free Schools Act. 
Juan was also changed with criminal weapons violations.
  The family court that heard Juan's criminal case ruled that the 
security guard did not have reasonable suspicion to search this 
student. As a result, the court refused to admit the gun as evidence of 
Juan's guilt, relying on the judicially created mechanism known as an 
exclusionary rule.
  The New York appellate court took this decision to ridiculous lengths 
by applying the exclusionary rule to the internal school disciplinary 
action against this student. In essence, this court was saying that the 
security aide in the school was to blame for catching this young 
student red-handed bringing a gun to school. They said he should not 
have been expelled and ordered his record expunged of any wrongdoing in 
the matter.
  This is the most ludicrous decision from a court. If this ruling is 
allowed to stand, teachers and school administrators who know that a 
student is packing a gun will be powerless to act without a 
``reasonable suspicion''--whatever that now is--that the gun exists. In 
some cases, like this one, it tells school officials to look the other 
way when they know a student is carrying a loaded gun.
  I do not understand this thinking. What on Earth has happened to 
common sense? When you and I board an airplane, we voluntarily consent 
to security checks in order to preserve the safety and security of 
ourselves and other passengers. Now we have a court that says, ``Oh, 
but you can't have that same level of security with respect to kids in 
school. Yes, you can remove a gun from a passenger who is going on an 
airplane because it is unsafe, but you cannot remove a gun from the 
jacket of a 15-year-old who is carrying a loaded .45 semiautomatic 
pistol into a school.'' What has happened to common sense?
  I am introducing a piece of legislation today that is painfully 
simple. So simple, in fact, that it ought not to have to be introduced. 
It simply says that you cannot exclude a gun as evidence in a 
disciplinary action in school. This bill returns to schools the most 
basic and necessary of disciplinary tools--the ability to keep 
classrooms safe from gun violence for the students who want to learn.
  Let me emphasize that this bill does not violate the constitutional 
rights of kids. School officials who conduct unreasonable or unlawful 
searches will not be exonerated by this legislation, and people who 
have been aggrieved will be free to pursue any judicial or statutory 
remedies available to them. What they are not free to do--once they 
have been found with a gun--is slip through a school's disciplinary 
process and return to school where they can continue to threaten other 
kids and teachers. I do not want that kid in school with my children. I 
do not want that kid in school with the children of the Presiding 
Officer or any other citizen of this country. When a kid puts a 
semiautomatic pistol, loaded, in his waistband or jacket and heads off 
to school, if my children or the children of any American citizen are 
in that school, I want that kid expelled and out immediately.
  If our court system does not understand that, then there is something 
wrong with our court system. Never again, in this country, should we 
have a circumstance where a court says that, even though a student is 
caught red-handed with a loaded gun, the security guard who finds it 
should pat the kid on back and say, ``Sorry, I really should not have 
seen that. You go to class now.''
  No wonder people are angry in this country about a system that 
excuses everything. I know people will say to me, ``How dare you 
personalize this? How dare you criticize a judge?'' But who is a judge? 
Judges are public servants, paid for with public money. I want judges 
to make thoughtful, reasonable decisions.

  When judges, just as when other public officials come up with 
decisions that defy all common sense, we have a right to be publicly 
critical. Certainly in this case we have a right to offer legislation 
to say there ought not be one school district in America that has any 
other than zero tolerance for guns in schools. There ought not be one 
judicial jurisdiction in this country that is able to say to any school 
board, any principal, or any teacher, that a kid bringing a gun to 
school ought to be sent back to a classroom because someone had no 
right to find the gun.
  If we have a right to ensure the security of passengers who get on 
airplanes in this country, and we do, then we have a right to ensure 
the safety of teachers and children in our public schools. If we do not 
have that right, if we cannot take the first baby step in making sure 
that places of learning are safe, then we cannot take any step in 
improving our educational system in America.
  I offer this bill in the spirit of bipartisanship. There are 
Republicans and Democrats who have joined me in offering it. I recall a 
couple years ago, at the end of a legislative session just like we are 
now, when Senator Feinstein and I were trying very hard to save the 
provision that we had put in law saying we ought to adopt a zero 
tolerance on guns in schools. At the time, I shared a story with my 
colleagues. I know it is repetitious but it is important, so I am

[[Page S11545]]

going to tell it again. I do not know about the subject of guns in 
schools so much from my hometown because I come from North Dakota, a 
town of 300, a high school class of nine; a small school. We did not 
have so many of the problems that so many schools have now.
  But a few years ago I toured a school not very far from this Capitol 
building. That school had metal detectors and security guards. A month 
later, a student at that school bumped a student who was taking a drink 
at a water fountain and the student taking the drink, after he was 
bumped, pulled out a pistol, turned around, and shot the other student 
four times. The name of the young man who was shot is Jerome. He 
survived; critically wounded, but he survived. I visited with Jerome 
after that. He has since graduated.
  But I was trying to understand, what is happening here? What is 
happening that a child who bumps another child in a lunchroom finds 
himself facing a loaded pistol and is shot four times? I do not even 
begin to understand it. But I do not need to begin to understand it to 
know that we ought, in every circumstance, under every condition, 
decide to fight to make certain that people are not bringing guns into 
our schools. Our schools ought to be safe havens, places of learning 
where our young boys and girls come, believing they are going to learn 
during that day and be safe while they are learning.
  That is why we introduced the legislation 2 years ago. I am very 
surprised we are here on the floor of the Senate talking again about 
this issue, but we are here because of a court decision that stands 
logic on its head. When they do that, I will come to the floor again, 
and again, and again, and introduce legislation that restores some 
common sense on this issue.
  Mr. President, let me say again that I appreciate the opportunity to 
work closely with the Senator from California on this issue. Mr. 
President, I yield the floor, and I ask unanimous consent that the text 
of the bill be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the bill was ordered to be printed in the 
Record, as follows:

                                S. 2140

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of 
     the United States of America in Congress assembled,

     SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

       This Act may be cited as the ``Safer Schools Act of 1996''.

     SEC 2. SAFER SCHOOLS.

       (a) In General.--Section 14601(b)(1) of the Gun-Free 
     Schools Act of 1994 (20 U.S.C. 8921(b)(1)) is amended--
       (1) by striking ``under this Act shall have'' and inserting 
     the following: ``under this Act--
       ``(A) shall have'';
       (2) by striking the period at the end and inserting ``; 
     and''; and
       (3) by adding at the end the following:
       ``(B) beginning not later than 2 years after the date of 
     enactment of the Safer Schools Act of 1996, shall have in 
     effect a State law or regulation providing that evidence that 
     a student brought a weapon to a school under the jurisdiction 
     of the local educational agencies in that State, that is 
     obtained as a result of a search or seizure conducted on 
     school premises, shall not be excluded in any school 
     disciplinary proceeding on the ground that the search or 
     seizure was in violation of the fourth amendment to the 
     Constitution of the United States.''.
       (b) Report to State.--Section 14601(d) of the Gun-Free 
     Schools Act of 1994 (20 U.S.C. 8921(d)) is amended--
       (1) in paragraph (1), by striking ``the State law required 
     by'' and inserting ``each State law or regulation''; and
       (2) in paragraph (2), by striking ``subsection (b)'' and 
     inserting ``subsection (b)(1)(A)''.
       (c) Report to Congress.--Section 14601(f) of the Gun-Free 
     Schools Act of 1994 (20 U.S.C. 8921(f)) is amended by 
     inserting ``of subsection (b)(1)(A)'' before ``of this''.

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I thank the Senator from North Dakota for his 
leadership on this issue. I have been very proud to cosponsor the bill 
with him, and it has been a very important bill in California.
  I will never forget going to a school in Hollywood, CA, speaking to a 
fourth grade class and asking that class, What is your No. 1 fear?
  Do you know what it was? It was getting shot in class or on the way 
to school. I didn't believe it, so I asked the class: Well, how many of 
you have even heard gunshots? In the fourth grade of this Hollywood 
elementary school, every single hand went up.
  Then I remember going to Reseda High School and embracing a mother 
whose son had been shot in a hallway for no reason at all, just shot 
dead by another student. That is when I came back and sort of firmed up 
my resolve to really try to do something about it.
  In 1993--this is the year before we passed this bill, gun-free 
schools--the Oakland school officials confiscated 60 guns; Fresno 
school officials confiscated 43 guns; San Jose, 175 guns; Los Angeles, 
256 guns; Long Beach, 37 guns; and San Diego, 30 guns.
  These are the schools of California. Who can learn when a youngster 
has a .45 in their pocket? I don't think your son or daughter could 
learn. I know my son or daughter or granddaughter couldn't learn in a 
school if guns are present. So this is a good bill.
  I share the frustration of Senator Dorgan. I wasn't shaving that 
morning, but I did read the New York Times, and what I saw in the New 
York Times amazed me, because what it said was that no school security 
guard, seeing a bulge in a youngster's pocket, could go up to that 
youngster and say, ``What do you have in your pocket?''
  If you see a bulge in somebody's pocket, you can have a reasonable 
belief that they are carrying a weapon, particularly in a day and age 
where we have 160,000 students a year going into schools with weapons. 
That is a reasonable belief if there is a bulge.
  We know for a fact that many schools now have metal detectors, that 
many schools routinely search backpacks. What does this court finding 
do to these routine searches? I think it decimates them.
  So we have submitted to you a bill which we hope will correct this. I 
know that gun-free schools work. In Los Angeles, when they put in a 
gun-free-school bill, gun incidents went down by 65 percent. In San 
Diego, gun incidents in school were cut in half.
  What we contend is that any school that takes Federal money should 
have a zero tolerance policy for guns in that school. That means you 
bring a gun to school, you are expelled for 1 year. No ifs, ands, or 
buts, you go out. The superintendent has the ability to be able to see 
there is some alternative placement if that is available and to provide 
counseling for the youngster. But the point of this is, it has to be 
enforced. For the New York City Family Court to strike down a gun being 
entered into evidence that was confiscated by a bona fide security 
person in the course of their duties on school grounds to me just 
boggles my mind.
  Let me talk just for a moment about what happens if this ruling 
stands and if we don't address it legislatively. I think it is really a 
shot in the back of school districts that are attempting to eliminate 
gun violence in their schools. How many school security guards and 
teachers will now hesitate to be just a little bit more vigilant in 
protecting the millions of good, innocent kids who are in our schools? 
How many overworked and underpaid teachers, fearful for their safety, 
will decide that this is the last straw and simply turn away from 
teaching if they can't go out there and say, ``I think you may have 
something in your backpack that is contraband. Open it up.'' Or, 
``Susie,'' or ``Jeff, what is that bulge in your pocket? Let me see 
what you have in your pocket.''
  This raises the whole kind of commonsense aspect: Should a youngster 
in a school have the same privacy rights that a youngster in a home 
would have? I don't think so. I think a minor should be subject to 
search for contraband, to search for possession of a weapon, and if we 
let our laws in this country bend over so backward that a security 
guard or a teacher can't say, ``Show me what you have in that pocket,'' 
or ``Show me what I think you have in that backpack,'' or ``I have 
reason to believe you may have something you shouldn't have in your 
locker; I am going to open it up and look at it,'' I think any effort 
to protect youngsters in schools will go right out the window.
  So I think that what we are trying to do today--Senator Dorgan, 
myself, I know I talked with Senator D'Amato about this. I know he has 
said, ``Let's work together.'' I am delighted to see he is on this bill 
as well.
  It is extraordinarily important that we get guns out of our schools, 
and this

[[Page S11546]]

court decision was just a major setback, because what it said is, you 
can't enter the gun into evidence, you can't make it stick. I cannot 
fathom how any judge could do this.
  I am not entirely sure that the remedy we present today is the full 
remedy that we need. I think it may even need beefing up in itself. But 
I think it is a real start in the right direction, and I think it is 
extraordinarily important that Senators on both sides of the aisle 
really state to the public their belief that guns must not be brought 
to school, that knives must not be brought to school, that drugs, for 
that matter, should not be brought to school, and that we reinforce 
this in every way, shape or form we can legislatively.
  I am very, very pleased and proud to join with the Senator from North 
Dakota, once again, in hopes that this body will take prompt action in 
the early part of the next session. My hope also is, as this case 
proceeds on appeal, that common sense may reign. I cannot believe that 
the Framers of the Constitution of the United States of America wanted 
a situation whereby a youngster could be search-proof in a school for a 
weapon of destruction.
                                 ______