Key Takeaways
- Hillsboro-Deering School officials admitted the unconstitutional search of student Jack Harrington’s truck in a federal judgment.
- The search occurred after officials learned Harrington owned a legally carried handgun, despite no evidence of illegal conduct.
- The judgment stressed that exercising Second Amendment rights cannot justify unreasonable searches under the Fourth Amendment.
- SAF emphasizes the importance of maintaining constitutional rights, highlighting that lawful gun ownership cannot create reasonable suspicion for searches.
- Harrington’s case illustrates the significance of knowing and standing firm on one’s rights, which led to a favorable federal judgment.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
HILLSBORO, NH — The superintendent of the Hillsboro-Deering Cooperative School District and the principal of Hillsboro-Deering High School have signed onto a federal judgment declaring that their April 24, 2025 search of student Jack Harrington’s pickup truck was unconstitutional. The stipulated declaratory judgment in Harrington v. Crawford, Case No. 1:25-cv-407, was filed September 17, 2026 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire. Stipulated means both sides agreed to it. Declaratory means the court is formally stating what the law required, not awarding damages.
I covered this case earlier when the Second Amendment Foundation filed its reply brief: SAF Reply Brief Says New Hampshire School Searched an 18-Year-Old’s Truck Solely Because He Lawfully Owns a Handgun. What has changed is that the fight is over. Superintendent Jennifer Crawford and Principal James O’Rourke, named as defendants in their official capacities, have put their names on a court document that says the search was illegal. SAF announced the result on September 22, 2026.
The backdrop, according to SAF, is simple. Harrington owns a handgun that he sometimes carries in his truck, in full compliance with federal and New Hampshire law. He never brought it to school, which he knew was prohibited. Once school officials learned he owned a firearm, they questioned him. He repeatedly refused to consent to a search. His parents, reached by phone, refused as well. The school searched the truck anyway. Nothing was found. The gun was at his home.
Those refusals are what made this case clean. With consent off the table, the search had to stand on its own legal footing, and the district now admits it had none. The complaint, filed October 15, 2025, carried a single count: violation of Harrington’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
The judgment’s first three points are the admissions. The search of the truck and its glove box was unconstitutional. It did not meet the “reasonable suspicion” standard the Supreme Court set for school searches in New Jersey v. T.L.O., 469 U.S. 325 (1985). In plain terms, schools do not need a warrant or probable cause to search a student, but they do need specific facts suggesting the student broke a law or a school rule. The district concedes it did not have that. And the judgment states outright that Harrington did not engage in any illegal or unlawful conduct on April 24, 2025 or at any other time that justified the search.
The fourth point is the one with reach beyond a single parking lot. The parties agreed that a search of a student’s person, property, or vehicle based solely on the exercise of a constitutional or legal right, including the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, would be an unconstitutional search under the Fourth Amendment. The judgment spells out that the right to keep and bear arms encompasses the right to carry, store, or transport a handgun in a vehicle or in its glove box. A school district put that language in a federal court filing under its own signature.
“Maintaining safety on school grounds is a laudable goal,” said SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut. “But the Constitution demands that school officials have, at minimum, reasonable suspicion to search a student’s property. Critically, choosing to exercise one’s Second Amendment rights cannot be interpreted as a waiver of your rights under the Fourth Amendment, nor can it create reasonable suspicion of a crime.”
SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb went at the practical consequence of the school’s theory. “If that were the case, then lawful gun owners like Mr. Harrington would not just be subject to search of their property on one day – but every day – unless and until they prove that they have sold their constitutionally protected property to the satisfaction of school officials,” he said. “The Constitution prevents precisely that outcome and worked exactly as designed in this case.”
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The district got two things in return. The judgment states that Crawford and O’Rourke acted at all relevant times on a good faith belief that their actions complied with the law and out of concern for the safety of students and staff, and it says the judgment does not bind the defendants or the district with respect to different students under different facts and circumstances. The parties also entered a separate settlement agreement, and the judgment does not describe its terms.
The part I want carry-minded readers to take from this is what Harrington did before any lawyer got involved. He kept his gun off campus. He kept it legal. And when officials with authority over his daily life pressed him to open his truck, he said no, and kept saying no. That is the mindset. Knowing where your rights begin is half of it. Being willing to stand on them when it costs you something is the other half, and it is the half that produced a federal judgment saying a school cannot treat gun ownership as grounds for a search.
