Supreme Court takes case of 13-year-old strip searched by school district

[n0nsensical]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/24/us...pagewanted=all

March 24, 2009
Strip-Search of Girl Tests Limit of School Policy
By ADAM LIPTAK

SAFFORD, Ariz. — Savana Redding still remembers the clothes she had on — black stretch pants with butterfly patches and a pink T-shirt — the day school officials here forced her to strip six years ago. She was 13 and in eighth grade.

An assistant principal, enforcing the school’s antidrug policies, suspected her of having brought prescription-strength ibuprofen pills to school. One of the pills is as strong as two Advils.

The search by two female school employees was methodical and humiliating, Ms. Redding said. After she had stripped to her underwear, “they asked me to pull out my bra and move it from side to side,” she said. “They made me open my legs and pull out my underwear.”

Ms. Redding, an honors student, had no pills. But she had a furious mother and a lawyer, and now her case has reached the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments on April 21.

The case will require the justices to consider the thorny question of just how much leeway school officials should have in policing zero-tolerance policies for drugs and violence, and the court is likely to provide important guidance to schools around the nation.

In Ms. Redding’s case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, ruled that school officials had violated the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable searches. Writing for the majority, Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw said, “It does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights.”

“More than that,” Judge Wardlaw added, “it is a violation of any known principle of human dignity.”

Judge Michael Daly Hawkins, dissenting, said the case was in some ways “a close call,” given the “humiliation and degradation” involved. But, Judge Hawkins concluded, “I do not think it was unreasonable for school officials, acting in good faith, to conduct the search in an effort to obviate a potential threat to the health and safety of their students.”

Richard Arum, who teaches sociology and education at New York University, said he would have handled the incident differently. But Professor Arum said the Supreme Court should proceed cautiously.

“Do we really want to encourage cases,” Professor Arum asked, “where students and parents are seeking monetary damages against educators in such school-specific matters where reasonable people can disagree about what is appropriate under the circumstances?”

The Supreme Court’s last major decision on school searches based on individual suspicion — as opposed to systematic drug testing programs — was in 1985, when it allowed school officials to search a student’s purse without a warrant or probable cause as long their suspicions were reasonable. It did not address intimate searches.

In a friend-of-the-court brief in Ms. Redding’s case, the federal government said the search of her was unreasonable because officials had no reason to believe she was “carrying the pills inside her undergarments, attached to her nude body, or anywhere else that a strip search would reveal.”

The government added, though, that the scope of the 1985 case was not well established at the time of the 2003 search, so the assistant principal should not be subject to a lawsuit.

Sitting in her aunt’s house in this bedraggled mining town a two-hour drive northeast of Tucson, Ms. Redding, now 19, described the middle-school cliques and jealousies that she said had led to the search. “There are preppy kids, gothic kids, nerdy types,” she said. “I was in between nerdy and preppy.”

One of her friends since early childhood had moved in another direction. “She started acting weird and wearing black,” Ms. Redding said. “She started being embarrassed by me because I was nerdy.”

When the friend was found with ibuprofen pills, she blamed Ms. Redding, according to court papers.

Kerry Wilson, the assistant principal, ordered the two school employees to search both students. The searches turned up no more pills.

Mr. Wilson declined a request for an interview and referred a reporter to the superintendent of schools, Mark R. Tregaskes. Mr. Tregaskes did not respond to a message left with his assistant.

Lawyers for the school district said in a brief that it was “on the front lines of a decades-long struggle against drug abuse among students.” Abuse of prescription and over-the-counter medications is on the rise among 12- and 13-year-olds, the brief said, citing data from the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

Given that, the school district said, the search was “not excessively intrusive in light of Redding’s age and sex and the nature of her suspected infraction.”

Adam B. Wolf, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents Ms. Redding, said her experience was “the worst nightmare for any parent.”

“When you send your child off to school every day, you expect them to be in math class or in the choir,” Mr. Wolf said. “You never imagine their being forced to strip naked and expose their genitalia and breasts to their school officials.”

In a sworn statement submitted in the case, Safford Unified School District v. Redding, No. 08-479, Mr. Wilson said he had good reason to suspect Ms. Redding. She and other students had been unusually rowdy at a school dance a couple of months before, and members of the school staff thought they had smelled alcohol. A student also accused Ms. Redding of having served alcohol at a party before the dance, Mr. Wilson said.

Ms. Redding said she had served only soda at the party, adding that her accuser was not there. At the dance, she said, school administrators had confused adolescent rambunctiousness with inebriation. “We’re kids,” she said. “We’re goofy.”

The search was conducted by Peggy Schwallier, the school nurse, and Helen Romero, a secretary. Ms. Redding “never appeared apprehensive or embarrassed,” Ms. Schwallier said in a sworn statement. Ms. Redding said she had kept her head down so the women could not see that she was about to cry.

Ms. Redding said she was never asked if she had pills with her before she was searched. Mr. Wolf, her lawyer, said that was unsurprising.

“They strip-search first and ask questions later,” Mr. Wolf said of school officials here.

Ms. Redding did not return to school for months after the search, studying at home. “I never wanted to see the secretary or the nurse ever again,” she said.

In the end, she transferred to another school. The experience left her wary, nervous and distrustful, she said, and she developed stomach ulcers. She is now studying psychology at Eastern Arizona College and hopes to become a counselor.

Ms. Redding said school officials should have taken her background into account before searching her.

“They didn’t even look at my records,” she said. “They didn’t even know I was a good kid.”

The school district does not contest that Ms. Redding had no disciplinary record, but says that is irrelevant.

“Her assertion should not be misread to infer that she never broke school rules,” the district said of Ms. Redding in a brief, “only that she was never caught.”

Ms. Redding grew emotional as she reflected on what she would have done if she had been told as an adult to strip-search a student. Dabbing her eyes with a tissue, she said she would have refused.

“Why would I want to do that to a little girl and ruin her life like that?” Ms. Redding asked.

Now I'm sure you all would know what I have to say about this. In case you don't, I think it's the most ridiculous thing I have heard in at least a month, maybe all year. The only thing the Ninth Circuit got wrong was not making it a unanimous decision. But now the Supreme Court is going to review it, which pretty much means the 9th will be overturned in the school district's favor. Obama is president but I still find myself wondering if I should continue paying federal taxes or living here at all, if anyone can defend the strip search of a 13-year-old girl by a school district for prescription ibuprofen. IBUPROFEN. BTW, one 600 mg prescription ibuprofen is perfectly equivalent to three 200 mg over-the-counter ibuprofens. Better not tell any of these kids that you can kill yourself by taking 20 over-the-counter ibuprofens or we'll be seeing a rash of suicides. And I couldn't blame them if they go to school in a place where this is justified. What the fuck?

[Cynthetiq]

I read this earlier today and wondered just how nuts it is. Liability is so high now, that nurses have to dispense ALL medications. Kids fall in line to the nurse to get their ritalin, paxil, etc. This includes IBUPROFEN.

The crux of this isn't the dispensing of controlled substances, but about the strip search. Should a school have the ability to strip search it's children?

Schools have been notorious in stating that the children have no rights to privacy for decades. This even extends to vehicles driven by students parked on public property.

I say that no. They have no jurisdiction. They can get a warrant just the like the police do.

[inBOIL]

I'd like to know why criminal charges weren't filed against the staff members who conducted the search.

[Frosstbyte]

As far as the broad constitutional question goes, I do not think a warrant is required at a school, because students do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy at school. It's not their personal space and it's not for their personal use. Safety, security and liability are a major concern for schools, because, let's just assume, that if this girl had prescription medication and the school didn't do anything about it, and one of her friends took it and got hurt, the school would be facing that lawsuit, too.

In this particular instance, I think the school may have gone too far, though it doesn't sound like the search was as horribly invasive as a strip search could have been. The headline sure preps you to read a story about a girl who got a cavity search from an old, sketchy security guard. The girl is claiming some stunningly serious emotional distress from the facts presented. I can imagine feeling ashamed and violated, but not going back to school for months, transferring and ulcers? Claiming that the school "ruined her life" by doing this search? That's quite the accusation. It sounds like the nurse and secretary conducted the search about as professionally as you can conduct a strip search.

I'll be interested to see the final decision.

[SecretMethod70]

Originally Posted by Frosstbyte

It sounds like the nurse and secretary conducted the search about as professionally as you can conduct a strip search [of a 13 year old girl].

Emphasis and detail added. Going through her bags is one thing, but a strip search is entirely another. While her reaction may seem extreme, we've got to remember that 13 year olds are already crazy enough with all the hormones running through their bodies, and something like this very well could be as traumatizing as she claims it was. I don't care how "professionally" it was done, they still strip searched a 13 year old girl, and that's simply inexcusable.

[dksuddeth]

i'm glad a case like this has finally made it to be heard, but here is the relevant questions we should all be asking ourselves....

over all of the years of demanding some other entity take responsibility for our children and attempts to make those entities liable for failure to do so, should we have expected any less? Is 'zero tolerance' now worth it? Do we truly wish to deny our children basic privacy rights in public education settings?

When you ask and answer these, do so as if you were discussing the issue about your own daughter being strip searched.

[Derwood]

Zero tolerance policies never work, and often result in this type of thing happening.

I'm doing everything I can NOT to become one of these insane parents who demands these sort of things from their schools

[highthief]

I'm blown away by this ... strip searching a kid for Advil?

If your Supreme Court OKs this, as the OP suggests they will - wow!

I'd kick the crap out of a school official stripping my daughter down to find Advil, or anything short of a weapon. This is akin to sexual assault. Even if hard drugs were involved, call the cops if an actual crime is suspected.

[genuinegirly]

Wow. Just wow.
I'm with Inboil on this one.
The staff members who conducted the search should be disciplined.
This strip search caused severe emotional damage.
I can't help but to see this as a form of rape. She didn't know why she was being stripped. She just was told to do it. A school child should have some rights. Just because they are attending a public institution, if someone makes a wild accusation, the school should not strip them of their dignity.

[filtherton]

Wow. I hope the folk who run the schools my kid ends up attending aren't so lax about the emotional health of their students.

If I were that young lady's parent, I'd have a difficult time refraining from going down to the school office and doing a little bit of "civil liberties violating" myself. I have reasonable cause to presume that whomever made the decision to strip search this girl needs an ass kicking.

[Frosstbyte]

Since people keep bringing up the type of drug, should strip searches be off the table entirely in a school environment? Is it always immediately unacceptable to conduct a strip search of a 13 year old regardless of gender? If not, when would you be ok with it?

[highthief]

Originally Posted by Frosstbyte

Since people keep bringing up the type of drug, should strip searches be off the table entirely in a school environment? Is it always immediately unacceptable to conduct a strip search of a 13 year old regardless of gender? If not, when would you be ok with it?

If there were reason to believe an imminent danger existed - i.e., the kid was going to bomb the school - then OK. Otherwise, it is 100% inappropriate for school officials to be doing this.

[The_Jazz]

Originally Posted by Frosstbyte

Since people keep bringing up the type of drug, should strip searches be off the table entirely in a school environment? Is it always immediately unacceptable to conduct a strip search of a 13 year old regardless of gender? If not, when would you be ok with it?

I don't think that there is ever a reason to strip search a middle-schooler, including for weapons. Frisking is clearly different, but if a strip-search has to be conducted, it should be by the police, who would have to have a parent in the room. I can't think of a reason why any adult without a purient interest would ever think that this is appropriate.

I am bothered by this case very much.

[MSD]

Zero tolerance seems to prove the same thing as the Milgram experiment: when they feel absolved of responsibility for their actions, people lose their sense of compassion and empathy and will behave in abhorrent ways. I wouldn't go as far as to equate it to rape, but it is at least sexual assault.

[Frosstbyte]

That's kind of what I'm thinking, Jazz. Strip searches don't have much utility for weapons. I think they're much more geared towards finding drugs or other illegal paraphernalia which can be easily concealed in underwear or hidden in an orifice. There does seem to be a total lack of compelling need to go this far in this case.

I don't buy at all, however, that they did it because they were perverts trying to sneak a peek at an underage girl. Zero tolerance gone wrong seems much more likely.

[TheNasty]

Strip searches shouldn't be allowable at any age, regardless of gender, by any public school official.

If the situation has escalated to the point where a strip search would be necessary, you've gone into the realm of possibly criminal activities and the Police should be called to handle the situation from there.

School's do have the right to search lockers, purses, backpacks, and in circumstances vehicles. I would even stretch that to strip search down to underwear *IF the situation involves immediate threats such as weapons*. Searches to the point of nudity, however, at the very least should involve a parent, and ideally should be handled by the police with a parent present.

[snowy]

It was stupid of them to strip search the girl themselves. They should have contacted the school's resource officer, who should have called the police in to pursue the matter. SecretMethod is absolutely right--middle schoolers, for all their toughness and bravado, are really sensitive kids, and an incident like this can be incredibly hurtful. Their choice to conduct the search themselves is highly inappropriate. They also should have pulled her records, period. In a large school, there is no way the administration knows every student.

[Locobot]

Originally Posted by Frosstbyte

I don't buy at all, however, that they did it because they were perverts trying to sneak a peek at an underage girl. Zero tolerance gone wrong seems much more likely.

I think we'd have to know more about the Assistant Principal, Secretary, and Nurse to really decide if they're perverts or not. I'm very prepared to believe that this girl was being strip searched in order to humiliate, disparage, and demean her.

There are a number of completely ridiculous statements from the school officials in the article. "Ms. Redding “never appeared apprehensive or embarrassed,” Ms. Schwallier said in a sworn statement." Would they have stopped if they thought she was embarrassed? "Lawyers for the school district said in a brief that it was “on the front lines of a decades-long struggle against drug abuse among students.”" -Won't you have pity on these poor soldiers in their foxholes?

Won't be surprised at all if Thomas, Alito, and Scalia vote to overturn, can't wait to read their statement. I'm really hoping though that Roberts and Kennedy are prepared to uphold even a very clear violation of the 4th amendment.

The nurse and secretary should be reprimanded, they should have questioned, protested, and refused. The Assistant Principal should be sacked. The district owes this girl a wad of cash, enough to put her through college. imho.

[dksuddeth]

I would actually predict that Thomas will also side with Roberts and Kennedy and find this a 4th Amendment violation.

[kutulu]

Anybody who thinks fucking school officials and nurses should have the power to perform a strip search deserves to be strung up by their nuts. Furthermore, the only people who should be strip searching anyone, regardless of age is a cop.

As soon as my kids are old enough to get into trouble I'm telling them that I don't care how bad it is, if anyone (cops, school people, store managers, security personnel) is ever accusing you of doing something all you need to tell them is "I want to talk to my parents"

[Deltona Couple]

Originally Posted by kutulu

Anybody who thinks fucking school officials and nurses should have the power to perform a strip search deserves to be strung up by their nuts. Furthermore, the only people who should be strip searching anyone, regardless of age is a cop.

As soon as my kids are old enough to get into trouble I'm telling them that I don't care how bad it is, if anyone (cops, school people, store managers, security personnel) is ever accusing you of doing something all you need to tell them is "I want to talk to my parents"

A F-ING MEN!!! I read about this a while back and am glad to see that it is finally able to reach the SC. I have always told my kids that if they EVER get into any trouble at school, they should DEMAND the right to speak to their parents (us) before ANYONE touches them physically. I have NO problem with my children being punished for doing something wrong, but ANYONE strip searching my, or any other child, is violating their civil rights and unreasonable search and seizure. You want to search my kids locker or car while ON campus, fine. But you are NOT about to touch my child or ask them to strip down like that!

[shakran]

Originally Posted by Frosstbyte

As far as the broad constitutional question goes, I do not think a warrant is required at a school, because students do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy at school.

I completely and wholly disagree with the premise that students have no reasonable expectation to remain clothed at school. They have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to exposing their body to whatever slackjawed staff member decides they want to see it, for whatever reason. Had I been in her shoes, I'd have told the school to cram it, and they'd have gotten my clothes off only by winning a physical confrontation.

[Marvelous Marv]

Originally Posted by shakran

I completely and wholly disagree with the premise that students have no reasonable expectation to remain clothed at school. They have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to exposing their body to whatever slackjawed staff member decides they want to see it, for whatever reason. Had I been in her shoes, I'd have told the school to cram it, and they'd have gotten my clothes off only by winning a physical confrontation.

It must be a pretty clear-cut case when I agree with shakran

[Frosstbyte]

Originally Posted by shakran

I completely and wholly disagree with the premise that students have no reasonable expectation to remain clothed at school. They have a reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to exposing their body to whatever slackjawed staff member decides they want to see it, for whatever reason. Had I been in her shoes, I'd have told the school to cram it, and they'd have gotten my clothes off only by winning a physical confrontation.

My post was a general->specific construction. I don't think there's any problem with searching backpacks and lockers at school-hence, broad constitutional question. If you notice, I agree that they screwed up by strip searching her, because they weren't going to find anything that posed any immediate risk.

My problems with this case are the incredibly extreme damages the girl is claiming and how you go about drawing the legal line between the general notion that students shouldn't have a reasonable expectation about privacy in school and what that allows school administrators to do.

[filtherton]

Originally Posted by Frosstbyte

My problems with this case are the incredibly extreme damages the girl is claiming and how you go about drawing the legal line between the general notion that students shouldn't have a reasonable expectation about privacy in school and what that allows school administrators to do.

Extreme damages? If the folks who conducted the strip search were students instead of administrators we'd be calling this sexual assault.

[shakran]

Originally Posted by Marvelous Marv

It must be a pretty clear-cut case when I agree with shakran

Take deep breaths and try to relax. I'm sure it won't happen again.

Originally Posted by Frosstbyte

My post was a general->specific construction. I don't think there's any problem with searching backpacks and lockers at school-hence, broad constitutional question. If you notice, I agree that they screwed up by strip searching her, because they weren't going to find anything that posed any immediate risk.

My problems with this case are the incredibly extreme damages the girl is claiming and how you go about drawing the legal line between the general notion that students shouldn't have a reasonable expectation about privacy in school and what that allows school administrators to do.

I don't find them to be extreme damages. As Snowy pointed out, we are talking about teenaged girls here. Girls that age tend to get traumatized by what we might see as relatively minor events. And I doubt any of us would consider it a minor event if we were made to strip off in front of someone - imagine how the girl, who is much more sensitive to traumatic events than we are, and who may as many girls that age do have body image issues, must have felt with 2 adults who are supposed to be on the team keeping her safe, force her to strip and ogle her while she does it.

I wouldn't call it rape either, and I wouldn't call it sexual assault, because there doesn't seem to have been a sexually-motivated aspect to the situation, but I would certainly call it criminal.

I'll point out that we live in a climate now where if a kid is doing poorly in a class all she has to do is claim the teacher touched her breast to get rid of him for the rest of the semester while the school investigates him and drags his name through the mud. We live in a climate now where teachers are afraid to hug their students for fear of being slammed with sexual assault, and yet here a principal and two staff members collaborate in forcing a girl to strip? Not only is that mind-bogglingly stupid from a self preservation point of view (and I really don't want mind-bogglingly stupid people in charge of my kid's education, thank you), but it points an interesting finger at society, which thinks it's horrible to hug a kid, but seems to be divided on whether or not it's OK to force a child to disrobe in front of staff.

[snowy]

Well, the Supreme Court will start hearing arguments in this case today. I heard a piece on NPR this morning where the student in question, Savana Redding, spoke for herself. You can listen to it or read it here: Supreme Court To Hear School Strip-Search Case : NPR

The fact of the matter is that the school decided to strip-search a student without consent from a parent and entirely based on hearsay--the school district has never come up with any hard evidence that Savana Redding had or sold drugs to other students. The only evidence they had was the word of another student, and the fact that administrators had supposedly seen Savana hanging out with some students at a dance who "had alcohol on their breath." To me, none of that justifies strip-searching a 13-year-old.

[roachboy]

this is the kind of stuff that stacking the courts with far right ideologues will get us. yet another little gift from those reactionaries in the bush administration that just keeps on giving.

[dksuddeth]

Originally Posted by roachboy

this is the kind of stuff that stacking the courts with far right ideologues will get us. yet another little gift from those reactionaries in the bush administration that just keeps on giving.

and i'm sure that stacking the court with far left ideologues makes everything peachy keen.

[roachboy]

well, far left ideologues exist largely in your imagination so have no particular interest in this context, now do they?
what we have is rightwing ideologues systematically installed over a period of 8 years.
that is in the world, dk: that we can talk about.
try to stay focused on the empirical world, hmm?

[dksuddeth]

Originally Posted by roachboy

well, far left ideologues exist largely in your imagination so have no particular interest in this context, now do they?
what we have is rightwing ideologues systematically installed over a period of 8 years.
that is in the world, dk: that we can talk about.
try to stay focused on the empirical world, hmm?

too damned funny, rb. the far rightwing exists, but there is no far left wing. it's all in my imagination.

[Derwood]

Originally Posted by dksuddeth

too damned funny, rb. the far rightwing exists, but there is no far left wing. it's all in my imagination.

not on the US Supreme Court there isn't

[dksuddeth]

Originally Posted by Derwood

not on the US Supreme Court there isn't

whatever.

[roachboy]

it's not a joke, dk.

i understand that you personally are a libertarian and would probably oppose this erosion of protections against unreasonable search & seizure, but fact is that libertarians are nowhere near a majority position in the conservative coalition that's been passing through it's waterloo---far more prominent are folk whose politics on social questions in particular tends to favor extension of the prerogatives of the police over the civil liberties of individuals under the general pretext of being "tough on crime"...



on the question at hand--it is a sad reality that much of what's been said above about the lack of a basis to expect rights to privacy that are meaningful as a student in a public school has been demonstrated over and over for many years. probably in almost every school at the point locker searches got started geared around the "war on drugs" in your school.

this is just an absurd and to my mind arbitrary extension of it.

at the same time, i also somehow blurred this thread into the other gun thread when i posted relatively early this morning, so really, most of what i've said is moot.

[flstf]

There is something very wrong with an adult who would strip search a child for suspected cold pill possession. There is also something very wrong with parents, teachers, schools, police or courts who would allow this. How in the world did educated school officials ever come up with the idea that zero tolerance was a good idea. Aren't they supposed to hire professionals to use sound judgement when it comes to such things?

[Cynthetiq]

Originally Posted by flstf

There is something very wrong with an adult who would strip search a child for suspected cold pill possession. There is also something very wrong with parents, teachers, schools, police or courts who would allow this. How in the world did educated school officials ever come up with the idea that zero tolerance was a good idea. Aren't they supposed to hire professionals to use sound judgement when it comes to such things?

When a child cannot go to school and have a PB&J for lunch because it's BANNED from schools as some child may die because of breathing in peanut oil molecules based on ZERO evidence, that my friend is why there is zero tolerance.

Parents made the schools react in a proactive stupid manner, and then wonder why the schools are as fucked up as they are. Which reminds me I have a peanut tirade to write up.

[loquitur]

guys, we all agree that this sort of behavior by school officials is an outrage. That may or may not mean that it necessarily is a federal tort. I don't know one way or the other because I don't know enough about this area of law, but having read through the stuff that's posted here, I think people are approaching this from an entirely wrong vantage point. It seems to me that the analysis of the issue would look something like this: (1) does the constitution prohibit what happened; (2) if it does, is there an authorizing statute to permit a lawsuit, and if it doesn't, is there another statute that prohibits it; (3) is there some form of official immunity and if there is, how broad is it and does it apply here; (4) what qualifies as a cognizable injury for the claimed violation? (5) is there a state law remedy available that needs to be availed of first, before going to the federal remedy if there is one?

Even if the answer to any of these questions is that there is no current federal remedy in this case, that's not an endorsement of the underlying behavior, it could be simply a statement that, say, Congress hasn't acted or that the remedy is elsewhere. In other words, it may be a "who gets to decide" question rather than a "what gets decided" question. Most of what the Supreme Court rules is of a "who gets to decide" nature, and people are making a big mistake by confusing that with the substantive underlying decision.

I'll reiterate my caveat from above, which is that I have only a spectator's familiarity with this area of law and I haven't read the briefs, so I can only give you general impressions. But that's how it looks to me.

[loquitur]

Well, the argument was today, and some of you might be surprised at how it went. Here is a quote from the LA Times article:

Adam Wolf, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who represented the Reddings, said the court should draw a line between "ordinary searches" and strip-searches. He said Savana had no objection to the principal looking through her backpack and belongings.

Wolf said that the vice principal had no reason to believe pills were hidden in her underwear, so the strip-search was unreasonable. A Justice Department lawyer also urged a limit on strip-searches.

But in their comments and questions, most of the justices disagreed.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a swing vote on many issues, has voted regularly to give police and school officials greater leeway to search for drugs.

"Is the nature of drug irrelevant?" he asked. What if "there is a very dangerous drug -- meth -- that's going to be distributed that afternoon?"

He asked whether a search in that instance would be reasonable.

No, Wolf replied. There was no reason to think a 13-year-old honor student had pills in her underwear, he said.

That reply did not appear to convince Justice Stephen G. Breyer. It is "a logical thing" for adolescents to hide things. "They will stick them in their underwear," he said.

"And in my experience people did sometimes stick things in my underwear," he added, provoking laughter in the courtroom.

Breyer also questioned whether the strip-search was especially embarrassing. He said students regularly change into their gym clothes at school. He suggested the principal should have told Savana to change clothes so her underwear could be checked.

For a moment, Justice David H. Souter tried to put himself in the mind of the vice principal who had ordered the strip-search. The year before, a student had become violently ill after taking some unknown pills at school. The official may have feared a repeat.

"The thought process in the principal's mind is: Better embarrassment than the risk of violent sickness and death," Souter said. "What's wrong with that reasoning?"

Wolf said it would "send a shudder down the spines" of children around the nation if the court approved of strip-searches.

However, a lawyer for the Safford Unified School District urged the justices to rule that school officials have broad authority to search students. The vice principal in this case had been told that some students had pills, and that they were to be passed around at lunchtime. Based on that report, "he was entitled to search anyplace where contraband might reasonably be found," said Matthew Wright, the district's lawyer.

Justice Antonin Scalia asked if that applied to a "body-cavity search."

Wright replied that no school official would undertake such a search, but he insisted that it would be legal.

The case heard Tuesday has not been tried before a jury. A magistrate in Tucson ruled for the school district and threw out the Reddings' lawsuit.

The 9th Circuit, in a 6-5 decision, reversed that ruling and held that the strip-search violated Redding's constitutional rights.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. suggested during the argument that the suit should go to trial so a jury could decide whether the vice principal's order was reasonable in light of the circumstances.

The lawyer in me likes Alito's suggestion. I have no idea what Breyer is thinking on this one.

[Cynthetiq]

well the decision not what I thought it would be. I didn't think it would be 8-1, but more dissenters than just Clarence Thomas. Does this mean that any child could stick the contraband within their undergarments and thus end the search until the police arrive?

View: Supreme Court rules strip search of girl illegal
Source: Latimes
posted with the TFP thread generator

Supreme Court rules strip search of girl illegal

Supreme Court rules strip search of girl illegal
Associated Press
8:12 AM PDT, June 25, 2009

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled today that a school's strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal.

In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said school officials violated the law with their search of Savana Redding in the rural eastern Arizona town of Safford.

Redding, who now attends college, was 13 when officials at Safford Middle School ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear because they were looking for pills -- the equivalent of two Advils. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs and the school was acting on a tip from another student.

"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable."

In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas found the search legal and said the court previously had given school officials "considerable leeway" under the Fourth Amendment in school settings.

Officials had searched the girl's backpack and found nothing, Thomas said. "It was eminently reasonable to conclude the backpack was empty because Redding was secreting the pills in a place should thought no one would look," Thomas said.

Thomas warned that the majority's decision could backfire. "Redding would not have been the first person to conceal pills in her undergarments," he said. "Nor will she be the last after today's decision, which announces the safest place to secrete contraband in school."

The court also ruled the officials cannot be held liable in a lawsuit for the search. Different judges around the nation have come to different conclusions about immunity for school officials in strip searches, which leads the Supreme Court to "counsel doubt that we were sufficiently clear in the prior statement of law," Souter said.

"We think these differences of opinion from our own are substantial enough to require immunity for the school officials in this case," Souter said.

The justices also said the lower courts would have to determine whether the Safford United School District No. 1 could be held liable.

A schoolmate had accused Redding, then an eighth-grade student, of giving her pills.

The school's vice principal, Kerry Wilson, took Redding to his office to search her backpack. When nothing was found, Redding was taken to a nurse's office where she says she was ordered to take off her shirt and pants. Redding said they then told her to move her bra to the side and to stretch her underwear waistband, exposing her breasts and pelvic area. No pills were found.

A federal magistrate dismissed a suit by Redding and her mother, April. An appeals panel agreed that the search didn't violate her rights. But last July, a full panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found the search was "an invasion of constitutional rights" and that Wilson could be found personally liable.

Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented from the portion of the ruling saying that Wilson could not be held financially liable.

"Wilson's treatment of Redding was abusive and it was not reasonable for him to believe that the law permitted it," Ginsburg said.

The case is Safford Unified School District v. April Redding, 08-479.

[n0nsensical]

That's a relief!