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.
In the last couple of years he came up with a cockamamie theory that the 2nd Amend. only protects you if you're in a militia, that "people" in the Constitution doesn't mean all citizens, not in the past and not in the present, and the states can outlaw firearms possession outright or allow it for all citizens if they want and the 2nd Amend. has no bearing on that.
I'm sure he would say I am telling it wrong but it's so bizarre I can't pretend to be able to cite his theory chapter and verse. Besides it kind of changes when he needs it to. Like the Constitution. Of course only YOU and I are doing that!!! If they let him back in you can count on a continuation and whining about all these references to him in his absentia without pinging him.
See post 389. Metmom sort of quotes him. Metmom or I can FReepmail you with details.
Our dispute had its origins at a Philadelphia Society meeting, when I was lecturing on “We hold these truths to be self evident...” Van den Haag stood up and declared “There are no self evident truths...” I then asked him, “Is it not self evident to you that you are not a dog?” He replied, “No.” I then said, “Don’t you know that you are not a dog?” He again replied, “No.” I concluded the dialogue by saying “If you don’t know that you are not a dog, maybe you don’t know that I am not a fire hydrant.” I don’t think many there left without knowing why certain self-evident truths were the basis, not only of justice, but of sanity. There is no ground for human rights in positive law unless there is a prior ground in natural law recognizing that human beings are neither beasts nor God.
The problem for the Zotted One is that he attempted to pose what he thought was a rational argument that it is ok for schools to do that which any sensible and morally upright individual knows to be reprehensible, namely to treat a teenage girl in a manner that would outrage PETA if it were attempted on a dog. It defies certain self-evident truths, certain fundamental distinctions that differentiate our regime from that of Hitler, or Stalin or Saddam Hussein.
Frankly I am concerned that some judges could rule that this is actually ok. I only hope that the en banc opinion understands that affirming this decision will undermine the - ahem - respect that we have for our learned citizens who serve on the judiciary.
FReepmail.
Thank you for the offer, but one has no desire for the zotting to evolve into a contagion.
Tnx. I hope the thought the price worth it.
I wonder what it’s like in the bobby household right now. I wish I was a fly on the wall.
What he does NOT say is that TLO's facts were different than this. That was for smokin' in the girl's room, and it was a purse searched - much less invasive in the eyes of a court than a strip search which is a whole other degree.
Personally, I'd take this case in a minute. The drug was advil, this was a balancing test case, the search was invasive. I could make a name for myself in this type of case.
Don't worry about Bobby. He's busy strip-searching his kids. I told him one of them gave me a Pez.
I just checked his 2nd Amendment posts. You’re right. He seems to have absolute disdain for the Constitution. RobertPaulsen needed to go.
LOL!
“Even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally” is my motto.
Oh, it’s not a first, trust me. A much needed ZOT.
I know. I realized it after checking his anti-2nd Amendment posts today as well.
No surprise at all. I couldn't count the times he has cited an obscure example, requiring much study, that he has taken out of its context or twisted beyond recognition and plopped it down as "proof" that he is right. Always salted with some arrogant crowing and an insult or two.
I doubt that he has actually passed a BAR exam. His second amendment theory was well suited to a gun control position (even though he claimed the opposite) but in 22 years of keeping my eye on that issue I have never heard a gun grabber attempt to use his logic.
I suspect that strip searching is the least of what he would support had the little girl been found sequestering a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory pill in her panties. We would still need every available option left to us to find out about the "ring" that she was involved in, take down the "king pin" and make sure she "never saw the light of day again." The pillars of civilization are at stake ya know. ;^)
Or a contraband Pez tab!
Robert? Is that you?
If he has kids you’re going to owe them big time.
What do Pez tablets cost these days?
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