STATE VS. PATRICK DEFRANCO A-2054-10T4
We held that a defendant school teacher,
who had previously sexually assaulted a student, did not have a reasonable expectation
of privacy in his cell phone number when, at an earlier time, he had given his
prior number to the student, did not seek to hide the new number from him, and
had disclosed the number to the school for inclusion in its Staff Directory and
to multiple parents and students in connection with a school trip
that defendant was chaperoning.
We found further that the school's Resource Officer, a policeman
functioning in that dual capacity, who was aware of the student's allegations
of sexual assault, acted reasonably in requesting the number from the secretary
to the school's principal, and that the school acted reasonably in disclosing
the number to the officer. As a consequence,
we affirmed the trial court's decision to deny defendant's motion to suppress
the transcript of a telephone call between him and the student that was
intercepted by the police as a means for corroborating the student's claim of sexual
assault while a juvenile. 06-08-12
