This is one of the odder search and seizure cases I have seen. The case comes from Illinois. Apparently, a school Dean was looking for evidence from a previous incident at school. To obtain this evidence, the Dean had one of his students take him to the student's house and let him in. While the student's mother was in the shower, the Dean found the knife he was looking for, took it, and left. All without notifying the student's mother. Here is the Sun-Times account of the facts:

He was looking for a knife Tyler D'Allesandro, then 12, said he had inadvertently taken to school in 2006. Tyler said he doesn't know how the knife from his father's workshop got into his school bag.

But the Indian Trail Junior High student noticed it there and pointed it out to his friend. The friend took it, and then a third boy, whom Tyler did not know, grabbed it and brandished it toward other students "in a menacing manner," according to a federal lawsuit the family filed.

Tyler's friend put the knife back in the school bag. Tyler went home thinking the incident was over. That was on Friday, Sept. 22, of last year.

But on the following Monday morning, a parent complained to the school's dean, Michael Brumbaugh. According to the lawsuit, Brumbaugh drove Tyler home and told Tyler to let him in. Tyler's mother, Kelly D'Allesandro, was inside taking a shower, and Brumbaugh knew that, the suit said.

Continued: Here is the URL of the Sun Times Story (sorry, hyperlinking to this article did not work, copy and paste): http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/548369,CST-NWS-knife09.article

What an odd search on the part of the school Dean. Even with the student's permission, entering the student's home (even if no one was home) seems clearly out of line (so much so, I would imagine immunity would be out of the question, as may indemnity). I know we have zero-tolerance policies against knifes, but this is over the line. If he wanted that knife that badly, how about calling the cops and getting a warrant? Or, here is a radical idea, how about calling the student's parents first and asking them?