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.
Hitler also had hallucinations that inspired his abominations. There was no "drug dealer." It's Advil man, always was.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the ignorance of this statement.
You should read the story more closely, my friend:
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.
So your objection to this whole incident is that she shouldn't have been searched at all because, at best, all they would have found would have been more Advil. But the Advil was against school policy. Which means you're saying they should have the policy (to please the parents) but not enforce it (to please the students).
No, my objection to this whole incident is one of scope: this girl was subjected to a strip-search because she was merely accused by another girl of possessing Advil. Honestly, you can't appreciate how ridiculous this whole thing has become? On nothing but an uncorroborated accusation from a girl already in trouble for doing something she shouldn't have done, this school administrator thought it perfectly reasonable to force another girl to disrobe, and present her private parts to another administrator, to prove the allegations false. "Innocent until proven guilty" has turned into "guilty until you can prove yourself innocent."I'm sure you've never been the subject of a strip-search, of course, because you lead such a squeaky-clean life and you're such a good friend to the law enforcement community, but I can tell you from personal knowledge that a strip-search is 100% not fun. But then again, for all intents and purposes, this little girl was just like you---perfectly innocent, just going about her life; she just happened to be accused by someone of doing something she wasn't doing. I can't imagine that if you found yourself in similar circumstances, you'd find such an unwarranted and invasive search perfectly sane and reasonable.
“Right after I call my lawyer and tell him to start the paperwork to sue the school for $20 million for allowing a suspected drug dealer to roam the school hallways unimpeded by any search. “
Any legal presidents you can share?
Is the lawyer in question the one from Seinfeld, who defends Kramer?
Rots ‘a Ruck!
I don’t know about the courst, but it would geta suspension from school under this mindless “zero tolerance” rule.
It'll be interesting to see what SCOTUS does here, following the balancing tests approach from the TLO case.
That said, what I plan on doing in the meantime is teaching my kids to say "NO" if they are asked to be strip searched, tell them to refuse to comply, and tell them to CALL ME. I'll be on the cellphone with my attorney on my way from work to that school laying down the law on those bureaucrats. I'll leave my hockey stick at home.
All this for f'ing Advil which I can buy at CVS. I used to break school rules on drugs all the time. Back then, even a lot of teachers did not care. The drug in question was my asthma medicine. I really did not want to have to go to the school office to take a hit if I'm out on the practice football fields 1/2 mile away. Technically, I could have been suspended for 10 days for this. It's a complete Charlie Foxtrot.
It would be splashed all over the front pages of papers around the world, just like when it happens in the Catholic church. Or any other religious leader, for that matter.
If it's an educator, it hardly makes the news.
Quite the double standard there. There should be more outrage when it comes to anyone in the educational establishment as parents are entrusting their children to these people for the day and those same people keep going on about how they care so much for the children, and they're there to protect them, and when they're on school property they're the school's responsibility, yada, yada, yada,...
Not even in the same league outside of balancing tests used.
So your objection to this whole incident is that she shouldn't have been searched at all because the incident only involved Advil? (Even though Advil is against school policy.) I guess that the student who was caught with Advil shouldn't be punished either because it was only Advil -- hard to punish one and not the other.
But if this incident involved, say, Ecstasy, then it would be OK to strip search the girl. No? Maybe Ecstasy would allow a backpack search only. Marijuana would be a backpack plus pockets in clothing. Cocaine would be backpack plus pockets plus an outside pat down. Opiates, on the other hand ....
Put that in writing and we'll get the new Hemingway's Ghost drug policy out to every school as soon as possible.
All of our Presidents were legal, I'll have you know. Clinton pushed the boundaries a little .....
So, I get a call from the Emergency Room saying that my 13-year-old daughter had a psychotic reaction to a drug she got at school. They're not sure if it was LSD or Ecstacy or what.
I get there and my daughter tells me she got it from "Savana". I find out later that Savana was suspected at least one time before of distributing prohibited drugs, but the school did nothing. They didn't even search her, despite being told by another student that she got the drugs from Savana.
My poor little girl will forever be haunted by nightmares caused by a post reaction to the drug she obtained from a student who was allowed to roam the halls with impunity, poisoning our youth, fearing no retribution by the school.
Yeah, that'll be worth a couple of bucks.
Glad to meet you, Andy. I'm a non-homeschooled, successful guy too. There aren't too many of us. /sarc
As I wrote in my previous post to you, my objection is one of scope. You don't have to guess at all; rather, you do so that you can keep beating the dead horse you tried to sell earlier on in the thread. But since you insist upon being obtuse:
- An uncorroborated accusation from an unreliable source already in trouble with authorities is grounds enough to conduct a strip-search on a minor without parental knowledge, let alone parental consent.
- Possession of Advil is now treated the same way as possession of hardcore drugs.
As a reasonable human being, let alone one of the "conservative" political persuasion, you're not alarmed that the administrator's response---again, based on nothing but an uncorroborated accusation---was "have the girl strip down and expose her privates?" That doesn't bother you in the least? That's perfectly reasonable to you?
I call up the police and tell them my neighbor robertpaulsen is selling crack from his home. Since you have repeatedly indicated that flimsy hearsay evidence is sufficient for any kind of search authorities deem necessary, they send in a SWAT team to kick down your door in a no-knock raid. Since you didn't get a knock, you didn't have a chance to secure your dog, which lunges at one of the officers. He shoots at the dog and instead hits your daughter, who goes back to the emergency room again.
So you gonna call your lawyer for this one? After all, you yourself said authorities can carry out drastic search actions on flimsy evidence.
you got me, I spelled a word wrong, or spelled the wrong word— so no need to address that at all. /s
So by all means change your story from: I will sue ‘cause there is a ‘suspected’ drug dealer slinging aspirin that was not strip searched to your little fantasy where your daughter learns the consequences of your parenting/the lack of personal responsibility.
What does that have to do with non-police strip searching kids based on an accusation? I said “CALL THE POLICE”. That would saved your daughter from her future drug habit AND kept her a little safer from possible molestation, right?
What if the uncorroborated accusation by druggie Marissa had been that Savana had put Advil in a personal cavity. Would you be okay with a cavity search in that case?
What is lacking here is reason and proportion. But you get that when zero-tolerance laws gain the support of enough fawning government power worshipers like robertpaulsen. No need to consider the notion that Savana had no history of wrongdoing and was an honor student. No need to factor in that Marissa had reason to lie. And absolutely no need whatsoever that a strip search was being done regarding Advil, of all things.
Does "belongings" include the students' bodies? I doubt it. Lockers and back packs are one thing. A strip search is a whole 'nother matter.
Agree on reason and proportion. That was my point.
Although the circumstances were awful, another Conservative is born.
Good point. If a school authority conducted a warrantless search on my child's body, that authority would get a face full of 50's fist. I'd take the assault rap. It would be worth it.
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