In an opinion that could limit the ability of campus police officers in Washington State to conduct random patrols of residence halls, the state’s Court of Appeals has ruled that students have a constitutional expectation of privacy in their dormitory hallways, The Spokesman-Review, a newspaper in Spokane, Wash., reported.

The case stems from a 2006 incident involving a student’s arrest in a dormitory at Washington State University on burglary charges. A trial-court judge threw out the charges, saying the arresting officer had overstepped his authority by eavesdropping at residents’ doors and attempting a ruse to bring students out into the hallway. The university’s governing board responded by adopting a policy giving officers explicit authority to patrol dorms.

But in a unanimous opinion issued late last month, the appellate court agreed with the trial-court judge, saying that the students’ shared living space carried the same privacy protections as a private home under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

One of the three appellate judges, however, wrote in a concurring opinion that while the officer in the 2006 case had overstepped, the presence of a police officer in a dormitory hallway was not in itself a violation of privacy.

It was unclear whether Washington State or local prosecutors would appeal the appellate court’s decision. According to The Spokesman-Review, all public universities in the state have allowed their officers to conduct dormitory patrols and will now have to review their policies. —Charles Huckabee