By MARY KELLI BRIDGES

Scripps Howard News Service

June 01, 2001

NAPLES, Fla. - Florida state prosecutors won't file criminal charges against Lindsay Brown, an 18-year-old whose arrest made national headlines after she was barred from high school graduation because she had a kitchen knife in her car.

"I just can't prove that she willingly and knowingly brought it on to the school grounds," State Attorney Joe D'Alessandro said.

Brown couldn't be reached for comment, but Doris Gillenwaters said she was sure her granddaughter was thrilled with D'Alessandro's decision.

"It once again helps us realize our system works and common sense at least works there (in the judicial system)," Gillenwaters said.

Brown was arrested May 21, one week before she was set to graduate, after a school guard discovered a knife on the front passenger-side floor board of her car, which was parked on campus, breaking the school's zero-tolerance policy.

When questioned by school officials and a School Resource Office, they said Brown first said she thought the flatware knife might have belonged to her boyfriend, but she refused to give his name. She later said the knife probably dropped from boxes that were inside her car during a move over the weekend.

Sheriff's Maj. Dave Bonsall said the deputy gave her an opportunity to explain the presence of the knife, but that when she couldn't, he had no choice but to arrest her.

Brown's attorney for the criminal case, Peter Ringsmuth, disagreed. He said sheriff's deputies should have investigated a little more and not have been so "hasty" in putting her in handcuffs and booking her into the Lee County Jail.

As for her explanations when the deputy and school administrators first questioned her, Ringsmuth said Brown was scared and literally hyperventilating.

"She was kind of thinking out loud as she was trying to breathe and seeing her whole life collapse around her," Ringsmuth said.

The question of knowledge is important because for someone to be guilty of a crime, that individual has to know she committed that crime, D'Alessandro said. If Brown didn't know the knife was in her car, she couldn't know she was breaking the law.

On the day of graduation, Brown, with the help of a national nonprofit group, the Rutherford Institute, asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order and allow Brown to attend the ceremony. U.S. District Judge John Steele denied the request, saying it was a school and not a federal court issue.

Rutherford Institute founder John Whitehead said he was glad to hear that the State Attorney's Office declined to prosecute, but he said Brown should have never been arrested.

"It's just absolutely ridiculous that they would have done that to a child," Whitehead said.

Brown plans to attend Florida Gulf Coast University next year and will have a state lottery-funded Bright Futures scholarship to help pay her way.

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(Mary Kelli Bridges writes for the Naples Daily News in Florida)