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.
I’m a firm believer in jury nullification.
I would acquit you if I were on your jury.
I chuckled at that :)
Strip searching a kid (by a school employee no less) because of possible advil distribution just amazes me. Heck, this entire article blows me away.
Hah! Like minds!
See my post 173:
I would get charged with assault, but no jury would convict me, except maybe in NJ or MA.
Nobody else noticed. Big thud!
I’ve noticed that he never DID answer my questions about whether he’d like his rights violated like that, whether he wouldn’t mind a strip search by just a nurse with no probable cause, whether or not he was an educator......
The only times I’ve ever seen someone defend the educational establishment over absurd things like this with that kind of vehemence, it turns out they were part of the same system themselves, which is why they either never saw anything wrong with it, or they defended the pervs actions to the hilt.
There’s something seriously wrong with someone who sees no wrong in this and condemns a girl without a trial or evidence. I sure hope he really ISN’T part of the system. It’s bad enough that there are people like him out there, but to think that they have such free access to children is horrifying.
Thanks, Pandy. Just teasing about NJ.
He’ll be back, metmom. He doesn’t give up easily.
Thank you :) If it ever happens, I hope you’re on my jury.
Yeah, well, you’re probably right about NJ. I always think common sense would prevail but after some jury decisions I’ve read about, not too sure anymore.
You sayin’ I’m weird? ;)
Nope! Saying everybody else is! ;-)
LOL! I agree. NJ sucks in so many ways. We still have some sane people but they’re getting harder to find ;)
I’d acquit 50mm too and would pray someone would acquit me.
It amazes me that so many seem to love, thrive on, a nanny state. I think it’s more prevalent in the NE and California than the rest of the Country. Even NJ and other Northeastern states have pockets of normalcy but they’re getting smaller. That’s been my experience here anyway. I grew up here, philly and now live in NJ. We’re seriously considering moving once the youngest graduates high school in 8 yrs. Mainly because the cost of living, property taxes, etc are so high but I want out of this liberal cesspool.
Everybody else IS weird, lol.
I’m teasing.
You Joisy girls both need to move. Try Massachussetts, the taxes are lower and politics more conservative.
See, and I was the opposite. Great childhood, homelife, happy as could be but I wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box by any means.
Mid soph year I decided I wanted to go to college (Penn State specifically). So I worked my ass off and made honor roll and by junior year all honors classes/college prep track. My parents valued education and hard work. Took the SATs, scored really well considering, and my gpa from end soph year to graduation was mid 3. (I figure you’re an EE so will get all the abbreviations, not spelled out stuff, and such.)
I wasn’t an education major in college, was accepted to all Law schools I applied to, Harvard being one of them (and yeah I’m sorta proud of that given where I come from), and while driving to Villanova to fill out forms and such, passed St. Joe’s (philly, City Line Ave) and decided I didn’t want to be a lawyer but really wanted to be a teacher. Long long story, lol. I really just wanted to be a stay at home mom with a degree if I needed it. But I was good at certain things, and two were what I mentioned above. I wasn’t going to be the primary income unless it was necessary. So while passing St. Joe’s I decided to check out their teacher cert program and grad school. The rest is history. Got my ed cert, starting teaching high school history, and got my grad degree in both ed and history. Had a baby shortly thereafter and was a stay at home mom until I couldn’t be anymore so now work part time.
So my work schedule coincides with my kids school schedule. And I have two master degrees, graduated with distinction (high cum) yada yada yada. And if I didn’t have to work outside the home, I wouldn’t.
Generalizations suck :)
You get too much snow. I would like the old houses & to hunt for antiques though. See ya tomorrow....Pandy
ROTFL! I didn’t know what pork roll was until I lived here. Or should I say, Taylor’s pork roll? Now I love it. I love all the philly food I grew up with and now the not so weird Jersey food. But I’ve been watching Paula Deen and making some of her recipes so I think I’d do ok in the South.
I know exactly what you mean, especially about the ocean/beach. I NEED to be close to the beach/ocean. We’ve been looking (for the future) at SC, coast.
Just give me the beach/ocean and I’m happy.
Our real estate market hasn’t declined as much as other NJ areas, yet. But, I was checking the shore real estate, particularly, OC, WW, Sea Isle City, etc. It has gone down. I spent summers in Wildwood Crest and Margate (Aunts who had homes there). Many south philly people I knew back then owned a shore house too. And these weren’t rich people by any stretch of the imagination. I would have loved to had a vacation home down the shore. I spent all my summers down the shore growing up, it was an escape from the city and another world really.
No one understands the hard rolls, lol. Hard roll with butter. It’s breakfast!
As bad as I think illegal drugs are; I think it is even worse that our school officials are taking on law enforcement roles. I think the only circumstance under which a strip search should be done by school officials is if they think a student is hiding a weapon. In that case there is a threat of imminent danger to other students and school officials. If they suspect illegal drugs, or theft, and feel a strip search is warranted they need to contact law enforcement and it should be the same criteria as for any LEO search.
The purpose of schools and school officials is to educate- period. Their role should not be a law enforcement type role. I know the law allows the school officials to act as law enforcement but I personally feel it is absolutely wrong.
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