Posted on 04/02/2008 3:39:20 PM PDT by neverdem
There are two kinds of people in the world: the kind who think it's perfectly reasonable to strip-search a 13-year-old girl suspected of bringing ibuprofen to school, and the kind who think those people should be kept as far away from children as possible. The first group includes officials at Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona, who in 2003 forced eighth-grader Savana Redding to prove she was not concealing Advil in her crotch or cleavage.
It also includes two judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, who last fall ruled that the strip search did not violate Savana's Fourth Amendment rights. The full court, which recently heard oral arguments in the case, now has an opportunity to overturn that decision and vote against a legal environment in which schoolchildren are conditioned to believe government agents have the authority to subject people to invasive, humiliating searches on the slightest pretext.
Safford Middle School has a "zero tolerance" policy that prohibits possession of all drugs, including not just alcohol and illegal intoxicants but prescription medications and over-the-counter remedies, "except those for which permission to use in school has been granted." In October 2003, acting on a tip, Vice Principal Kerry Wilson found a few 400-milligram ibuprofen pills (each equivalent to two over-the-counter tablets) and one nonprescription naproxen tablet in the pockets of a student named Marissa, who claimed Savana was her source.
Savana, an honors student with no history of disciplinary trouble or drug problems, said she didn't know anything about the pills and agreed to a search of her backpack, which turned up nothing incriminating. Wilson nevertheless instructed a female secretary to strip-search Savana under the school nurse's supervision, without even bothering to contact the girl's mother.
The secretary had Savana take off all her clothing except her underwear. Then she told her to "pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, exposing her breasts," and "pull her underwear out at the crotch and shake it, exposing her pelvic area." Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference between drug warriors and child molesters.
"I was embarrassed and scared," Savana said in an affidavit, "but felt I would be in more trouble if I did not do what they asked. I held my head down so they could not see I was about to cry." She called it "the most humiliating experience I have ever had." Later, she recalled, the principal, Robert Beeman, said "he did not think the strip search was a big deal because they did not find anything."
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that a public school official's search of a student is constitutional if it is "justified at its inception" and "reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place." This search was neither.
When Wilson ordered the search, the only evidence that Savana had violated school policy was the uncorroborated accusation from Marissa, who was in trouble herself and eager to shift the blame. Even Marissa (who had pills in her pockets, not her underwear) did not claim that Savana currently possessed any pills, let alone that she had hidden them under her clothes.
Savana, who was closely supervised after Wilson approached her, did not have an opportunity to stash contraband. As the American Civil Liberties Union puts it, "There was no reason to suspect that a thirteen-year-old honor-roll student with a clean disciplinary record had adopted drug-smuggling practices associated with international narcotrafficking, or to suppose that other middle-school students would willingly consume ibuprofen that was stored in another student's crotch."
The invasiveness of the search also has to be weighed against the evil it was aimed at preventing. "Remember," the school district's lawyer recently told ABC News by way of justification, "this was prescription-strength ibuprofen." It's a good thing the school took swift action, before anyone got unauthorized relief from menstrual cramps.
© Copyright 2008 by Creators Syndicate Inc.
This is an ad hominem. The reasonability of the argument stands or falls on its own merits, and whether or not it was espoused by the ACLU.
ooops - should read “and not whether or not it is espoused by the ACLU.”
Quote the law and apply it to the instant case.
With a single national standard imposed by the courts everywhere. Leftist love centralized control.
And if they don't choose your standard, use the courts to force them. Nice bit of doublethink.
I don't see anything in the 14th Amendment about contraband searches in local public schools. But the left never has any problem inventing emanations of penumbras.
How old should a child be to give consent to disrobe in front of strangers, or worse, public education officials?
If you don't have an opinion, just say so.
13-1405. Sexual conduct with a minor; classifications
A. A person commits sexual conduct with a minor by intentionally or knowingly engaging in sexual intercourse or oral sexual contact with any person who is under eighteen years of age.
B. Sexual conduct with a minor who is under fifteen years of age is a class 2 felony and is punishable pursuant to section 13-604.01. Sexual conduct with a minor who is at least fifteen years of age is a class 6 felony. Sexual conduct with a minor who is at least fifteen years of age is a class 2 felony if the person is the minor’s parent, stepparent, adoptive parent, legal guardian or foster parent and the convicted person is not eligible for suspension of sentence, probation, pardon or release from confinement on any basis except as specifically authorized by section 31-233, subsection A or B until the sentence imposed has been served or commuted.
You're asking for a single standard imposed on all the states in place of the any laws they've chosen?
This is called rule of law. The same interpretation of the law everywhere is called equal protection. These are fundamental principles of our republic. Only you could turn protections against tyranny to be instruments of tyranny.
Furthermore, as I am sure Darren would point out, succinctly, this argument about states rights is moot. It is not an issue before this Court because Appellees have not made states rights an issue in this case. The question before the COA is the question of the application of Federal Standards to search and seizure to the facts of this case. No one has made the argument that those standards do not apply or that the Federal Courts do not have jurisdiction. That is the sole question that they can decide.
That doesn't seem to have anything to do with the instant case. Or do you just enjoy talking about it?
Law by judicial fiat, overriding all municipal law and regulation. Sorry, you and the ACLU have a ways to go before you get there.
Single standard - YES
In place of the laws they've chosen, is question begging. What laws have they chosen, separate and distinct from the 4th ammendment issue that is the issue in this case. We are not even discussing laws that the PEOPLE of Arizona have adopted,but rather a zero-tolerance policy that local school officials have chosen to put into place, with strip searches in enforcement thereof, regardless of 4th ammendment protections.
Should the 4th amendment restrictions of State powers be upheld everywhere? - YES
I'm asking for your opinion, you idiot! The fact that you won't give it is telling.
You're the one who thinks 13 year-olds are mature enough to give consent to stripping in front of strangers.
But you refuse to say whether you're asking for a national standard or not.
He is withholding in the bootless and foregone quest to prevent everyone from concluding the latter.
School officials acting in loco parentis, not strangers. Dishonesty and strange fantasies are no substitute for facts.
The US Constitution is a national standard. Every state signed up for it, first the original 13 colonies, and then subsequently each state when the applied for Statehood.
YES is the answer.
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