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.
And this is how the usurpers of the world work.
This country did not move through the doors of Kelo in a single leap, but in a series of small steps, each one ostensibly reasonable with the previous step as a precedent. But the final destination, that of taking private property for the simple reason of improving tax revenues while transferring ownership to another private party, is an abomination of the clear meaning and public purpose of eminent domain as laid down in the Bill of Rights. Even Sandra Day O'Conner got that.
And now, here you go again. You cite a legal precedent where there was more evidence than just the claims of another student to justify a search - as somehow being precent to justify a search of a student where the ONLY evidence was the claims of a studen with motive to lie.
Incrementalism at its totalitarian worst.
What some people keep ignoring is that the girl could have been kept under observation sitting in a chair somewhere, where she wouldn’t have time to stash drugs somewhere, until her parents or some other authorities arrived to deal with the situation appropriately.
There was simply no excuse for a strip search for prescription medication over the word of a girl with a history who was already in trouble for having drugs herself and likely just wanted to bring someone down with her.
I suppose the people who don’t mind strip searches like that on other people wouldn’t object to an anonymous tip about drugs in their own house so the SWAT team can bust down their door, shoot someone and maybe the dog/cat/canary/whatever, ransack the house, strip search the occupant, and then say it shouldn’t upset anyone because they had *suspicion* and they didn’t find anything.
You think these public school children are entitled to fourth amendment protection? Wrong.
"Not only have you justified the atrocious treatment of a young girl, you've declared her guilty without the benefit of a trial with no evidence."
Correct. If I did this in court, you'd actually have a point. As it is, you've got bupkis.
“yada yada yada” is kind of like *and so on and so forth, etc. etc,*.
Blathering talk or predictable typical talk lines like liberals use about global warming and race relations.
Paulsen conveniently avoided addressing this scenario, all the while asserting that HE has 4th Amendment rights, and all the while oblivious to the damage to our rights that incrementalist fascists like himself do to this country.
Squirrel is good, especially in stew....
What an idiotic statement. Of course they did. They thought they'd find contraband Advil because that's what the other girl had on her.
What school are you the principal of?
The Supreme Court crafted Roe from whole cloth and gutted the Bill of Rights with its Kelo decision.
Courts in tinpot dictatorships around the world routinely warp words and concepts to justify erosion or elimination of rights.
And guys like you roll joyfully in such verdicts like a dog rolling in...
Fourth Amendment rights for me but not for thee.
This is situational Constitutional rights. You have them if he thinks so but not if he doesn’t.
Your perfect totalitarian dictator.
If you're saying the school should change their policy, allowing students to exchange (legal) drugs with each other in the hallways and classrooms, speak up. Do you support that?
Is that what I said?
"So anyone can make a flimsy allegation and that is sufficient to search?"
Wow. You're not going to let the facts get in your way. We're done on this thread. You have no idea what you're talking about, and I don't have the time nor the inclination to educate you.
This country did not move through the doors of Kelo in a single leap, but in a series of small steps, each one ostensibly reasonable with the previous step as a precedent. But the final destination, that of taking private property for the simple reason of improving tax revenues while transferring ownership to another private party, is an abomination of the clear meaning and public purpose of eminent domain as laid down in the Bill of Rights. Even Sandra Day O'Conner got that.
You cite a legal precedent where there was more evidence than just the claims of another student to justify a search - as somehow being precent to justify a search of a student where the ONLY evidence was the claims of a studen with motive to lie.
Incrementalism at its totalitarian worst.
Well said!
Best regards,
You are done. I am not. I will slam every incrementalist post you make, lest anyone be fooled by your slick abuse of logic.
The point being, school officials were not justifying the search because they thought she was concealing hard drugs.
"What school are you the principal of?"
Everything you need to know about me is on my Profile page.
Oh, I know EXACTLY what I am talking about. Like all usurpers, paulsen, it isn't what you say, but what you do NOT say.
You continually ignore the notion that there were plenty of reasons to doubt the veracity of the claim by the girl caught with Advils that Savana had Advils. That was the only evidence that Savana had done wrong.
You cite a court precedent where there was more evidence than just the claim of a student to justify a search where that was the only evidence.
You engage in the hysterical argument that if we allow renegade Advil to possibly exist in schools, well, crack smoking in the boys room is the logical endgame.
And then, like all modern usurpers on both the left and right, you trot out the claim that it's all for the children. Who can possibly argue with usurpation when its for the children? Never mind that the endgame of totalitarian drift is a nightmare for children and adults alike.
You make me sick. Again.
Nobody's being fooled and it's not logic.
It's perversion, it's hyperbole, it's hypocrisy, it's inexcusable. But it's not logic.
They never touched her or her clothes.
"Then they need to get a search warrant and do it properly"
No they don't. Where did you read that?
"Her mind and innocence was raped as surely as her body could have been. And I'd wager that the effects would be as long lasting."
Once the school pays her thousands of dollars, I bet the pain will go away. By the way, her friend Marissa was searched exactly the same way. Certainly, her mind and innocence was raped and the effects would be long lasting. Why isn't she suing? Why didn't we read anything about her trauma?
Another favorite tactic of the usurpers - impugning the motives of others.
By the way, her friend Marissa was searched exactly the same way. Certainly, her mind and innocence was raped and the effects would be long lasting. Why isn't she suing? Why didn't we read anything about her trauma?
And a variation of the impugning motives gambit - if it didn't bother one person, the other person must have ulterior motives for being aggrevied.
Straight out of the Clintonista playbook. 357 posted on 04/04/2008 6:13:53 AM PDT by robertpaulsen
They never touched her or her clothes.
And the commanders of the nazi death camps are inocent because they didn't actually kill the Jews there, right?
"Then they need to get a search warrant and do it properly"
No they don't. Where did you read that?
Unlawful search and seizure. 4th Ammendment. Discussed up thread. Even children are persons.
"Her mind and innocence was raped as surely as her body could have been. And I'd wager that the effects would be as long lasting."
Once the school pays her thousands of dollars, I bet the pain will go away.
The money is not to remove the pain. It's to punish the school. Of course it will probably be used for therapy etc but the pain of being violated still remains for a long time.
By the way, her friend Marissa was searched exactly the same way.
There's no evidence to lead us to suspect that Marissa was her friend. In fact the evidence leads one to believe that Marissa was not her friend but was just trying to get her in trouble.
There's also no evidence that Marissa was strip searched. (they found the pills in her pockets)
Why didn't we read anything about her trauma?
Because Marissa didn't have any trauma. There's a huge difference between a teacher asking you to empty your pockets and being strip searched.
Metmom,
Heh! That would not be Twink! She's farther right than me!
Twink,
Stop using Yada, yada, yada, please!
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