Constance Days-Chapman with her attorney, Lee Vartan.
Atlantic City High School's suspended principal is appealing a judge's decision upholding an allegedly over-reaching search of her electronic devices.
Evidence against her includes two cell phones and an Apple watch seized in March. 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 last month.
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.
Defense attorney Lee 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 judge's decision on the overly broad warrants "turns Fourth Amendment jurisprudence on its head," Vartan alleged.
He called the court's decision "profoundly dangerous."
"Executing officers could equally seize Days-Chapman’s communications with her doctor as they could her communications with the Smalls about the alleged abuse," Vartan wrote. "They could seize personal photographs and internet browser history as easily as text messages or phone logs.
"These 'any and all information' warrants had no limitations — whether by time, type of data, or subject matter; instead, they authorized officers to take everything," he continued.
"As we have said from the beginning, the state’s case against Mandy is a gross overreach," Vartan told BreakingAC, using Days-Chapman's nickname. "Whether through our motion to dismiss what is a legally and factually flawed indictment or through suppression of evidence on appeal, we are confident that this case will never get to a jury."
The Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office would not comment on the case.
