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.
Maybe RobertPaulsen reverted to form and that's why he got the ZOT.
Point one, those facts are enough to disgust most of us. If they took pictures and put them on the net and I looked and them I would be charged with Kiddie Porn based upon those facts, regardless of my gender. What difference does the non-intervention of electronic media make in the decision of whether or not these folks are pornographers. Why would the prurient observer from afar be charged with child pornography, but the prurient observer on the spot not be charged with child pornography. The remote observer is physically prevented from touching.
An additional point. Those are facts, but they are not ALL the facts. ALL the facts include that this was in an effort to search for Advil. THAT in our opinion is what sets this case aside from other cases, and that is what violates our "zero tolerance" policy of civic decency.
I am glad that you can at least recognize a fact when you see one.
What is distressing is that you are not outraged by the actions of the state and a bit concerned for the state of justice when judges of an appellate court cannot see the bright line in the sand on this sort of thing. There is no shade of gray here. It is one intrusion too far. It really does shock the conscience.
Now, we have a statement of the facts upon which you are relying. Would you care to use them to advance YOUR OWN argument in this case, other than the indefensible that Robert Paulsen was unfairly maligned, attacked and Zotted, which is a case for a higher authority than any of us, regardless of how absurd we find your protestations on his behalf.
He got his depraved forked tail kicked all over this forum, and eventually resorted to obscenities. ****GLOAT GLOAT GLOAT ****
Just to be clear since you still seem awfully confused on the point, once again, this is an opinion, and not a "fact," which is a direct description of an actual event supportable by evidence and testimony of eyewitnesses.
The search of Redding’s person was conducted by two employees who were of the same gender as Redding, and the search took place in the privacy of the school nurse’s office with the door securely locked...Redding was not physically touched in any way during the search, and she was not asked to remove her bra or underwear.
I answered your question directly, you answered back with something that makes no difference to the case. You are not an honest person, go play in traffic.
I think mojave thinks, correct me if I'm wrong mojave, for it to be forcible that it has to be physical. Using authority to coerce is okay with mojave.
“I think mojave thinks, correct me if I’m wrong mojave, for it to be forcible that it has to be physical. Using authority to coerce is okay with mojave.”
IF that is what Mojave “thinks” then Mojave is dishonest (see earlier post) AND ignorant.
Let’s see mojave’s response. I agree that coercion is not acceptable either. It is very difficult for a child to resist authority. That’s the reason so many children silently endure abuse over long periods of time.
Lucky for you.
You have some very disturbing fantasies.
Question begging and inability to address the actual facts. Soup, sandwich.
My "argument" is that your accusations of "child molestation" are unsupported by the facts. Those sourced quotes have amply demonstrated the poverty of your baseless accusations.
I think you are unschooled in the manner of argument and morally depraved. Your other interlocutors think you are intellectually dishonest. You might wish to retire and contemplate your world view.
Actually, no. I was enjoying immensely the building anger that led to his ZOT. The anger was from the realization that he had failed miserably in defending his point of view.
In my experience, temper tantrums, as he had in his ZOT post, are the inevitable result of an immature person who does not get his way. I see that type of behavior in young children all the time.
That is not begging the question.
The facts are that a teenage girl was forced to strip in front of public officials and reveal her private parts to further a search for Advil.
Those are the facts.
Upon this fact I argue that the search was baseless. It was for advil.
It was unconstitutionally intrusive not even meeting the standard of "justified at the outset."
A baseless and unjustified forced exposure of genitals in any other venue is child molesting. I come by my view quite honestly and openly.
Tell us how your views of the facts and the conduct of these officials differs from mine. I want YOUR views, not a cut an paste of a legal opinion by the Court.
That is a conclusory statement. It is incumbant upon you to show what I have argued and how it is invalidated by something in those source quotes. Argue from the specific and nonconclusory please.
Big time bump! RP's statist position in this thread is not surprising at all.
She wasn't touched, she wasn't nude and you're begging the question of the alleged "force".
Three strikes.
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