Constance Days-Chapman with her attorney, Lee Vartan.
The suspended Atlantic City High School principal's efforts to have evidence suppressed have been denied again.
Evidence against her includes two cell phones and an Apple watch seized at the time of her arrest in March 2024. Her attorney argued that the warrants reached beyond what is allowed under case law.
Judge Bernard DeLury — who approved the warrants — disagreed in his ruling issued in February.
Defense attorney Lee Vartan appealed that decision. An appellate court denied his motion Monday.
"We are disappointed in the Appellate Division's denial of interlocutory review," Vartan told BreakingAC. "We are assessing our options."
Days-Chapman faces multiple counts of official misconduct along with child endangerment and hindering apprehension for allegedly trying to protect her friends the Smalls rather than report the abuse allegations made by their daughter.
Vartan has argued that there should have been limits on the search of Days-Chapman's devices. Instead, the state argued that the broad search was to prove the calls and/or emails that the mandatory reporter did not make on behalf of the child, as required.
But warrants are based upon probable cause of what will be found not what will not be discovered, Vartan argues in a 21-page appeal he filed this week.
"A search warrant seeking to obtain no evidence cannot be valid when warrants necessarily presuppose that there will be evidence to be seized at the location of the search," he wrote.
DeLury made his ruling "because investigators were not looking for affirmative evidence, but rather the 'absence' of evidence," Vartan explained in his appeal. "Nothing was off limits according to the motion court (DeLury)."
In his appeal, Vartan argues that there were other ways the state could look to prove his client's alleged inaction.
"Just as investigators could know whether a taxpayer filed his returns by contacting the IRS or the New Jersey Department of the Treasury, investigators could know whether Days-Chapman contacted DCPP or law enforcement by asking DCPP or law enforcement," he wrote. "There was no need to search all the data on her personal electronic devices. That explanation is plainly pretextual."
The Smalls' attorneys argued similar issues before DeLury. His ruling mostly denied suppressing evidence. He did, however, limit the time frame allowed on review of the couples' cell phone records to four months.
The Smalls are due back in court April 15 for arguments on the remaining motions in their case. Their trial is set for July 14.
