DRUG CASE INVOLVING SEARCH DISMISSED

A drug case against a Sugar Land teenager was dismissed Monday after
a judge ruled that Fort Bend Independent School District officials
conducted an illegal search.

The case involved a Dulles High School senior whose car was searched
by an assistant principal at the school. Kristen Renee Maldonado, 18,
was arrested on Jan. 31, 2005 by the Fort Bend Independent School
District Police and faced a felony charge of possession of a
controlled substance in a drug-free zone. A police officer who worked
at the school, C.W. Coombs, said Monday in the 268th District Court
that the case began with an anonymous phone call to his office. The
caller alleged that Maldonado had stashed drugs in a specific
compartment of her vehicle.

Coombs said he then called assistant principal Kimmett Brigham.
Brigham in testimony Monday said he pulled Maldonado out of her
class, and she consented to a search of her vehicle and belongings.

Another assistant principal joined Brigham, and the two allegedly
found a small amount of methamphetamine in the middle compartment of
the vehicle.

Maldonado's lawyer, Robert Pelton, argued school officials should
have obtained a search warrant from a judge. The woman may have
agreed to the search, but he argued the school would have conducted
the search without her consent either way. Elliott agreed, and ruled
in favor of the motion to suppress evidence. Prosecutor Wesley Wittig
argued that school districts, according to case law, have the ability
to conduct such searches to maintain a safe learning environment.