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.
First this is not YOUR position. This is a conclusory statement about MY position. I asked what YOUR position is on this case. You apparently have none.
Second I laid out the facts that I am relying upon. Are they incorrect? I laid out why I believe that these school officials have engaged in morally despicable conduct, i.e. if you or I did it we would be accused of child molesting and violating the law on child pornography. Please indicate your arguments for why the conduct of these officials is ok, when if your or I did it it is felonious.
Go bother someone else, adults are speaking.
Your haven't brought forward anything to support your "child molestation" argument.
Beg, beg, beg...
Naw, just sourcelessly whining
Now we get to the heart of the matter. You really believe that just because the girl still had on her bra and panties that authority figures looking at her exposed privates is okay because she wasn't completely nude. Sheesh!
“She wasn’t touched, she wasn’t nude and you’re begging the question of the alleged “force”.”
You do this to a child in your care, enjoy prison.
Still waiting for a scintilla of evidence from ya in support of your position.
Three strikes - your are intellectually dishonest.
If you or I even requested that a teenage girl do what these officials asked her to do, and with no threat of force, but mere implorations, we would be convicted as felons. How do you excuse what the state did?
“Naw, just sourcelessly whining”
but enough about you....
The school administrators aren't going to prison. Even the civil suit collapsed.
You haven't read the decision, have you?
No source, naturally.
What part of force don't you understand.
Beg, beg, beg. No evidence. Ever.
The school administrators aren’t going to prison. Even the civil suit collapsed.
You haven’t read the decision, have you?
You truly believe that a judge is the final arbitor of right and wrong? Again, if YOU PERSONALLY DID THIS TI A CHILD, YOU WOULD BE GOING TO PRISON.
The decision was wrong and shouldn't be an excuse for coerced humiliation or maybe you believe we should mindlessly accept all court-spewed abominations.
Not only do these facts not help your case, but you are an intellectual fraud because there are more facts than just these facts.
I did, actually, you just ignore key points and spatter about irrelevancies.
The civil suit has not collapsed. It was accepted by the court for a rehearing en banc, meaning that the full court at least had enough difficulty with the three judge pannels decision to regard it as worth rehearing. If the Court en banc rules against the state, the civil case will go forward.
Wilson asked Romero to take Redding into the nurse’s office and conduct a search of her person. Romero complied. Romero took Redding into the nurse’s office and again invited Schwallier to observe. At the time of the search, Redding was wearing “stretch pants without pockets and a T-shirt without pockets.” In Schwallier’s presence, Romero asked Redding to: (1) remove her jacket, shoes, and socks, (2) remove her pants and shirt, (3) pull her bra out and to the side and shake it, exposing her breasts, and (4) pull her underwear out at the crotch and shake it, exposing her pelvic area. The search did not produce any pills. Immediately after it had concluded, Defendants returned Redding’s clothes and allowed her to get dressed. At no point during the search did either Schwallier or Romero touch Redding. Prior to the search, no attempt was made to contact Redding’s mother.
The school officials used the power of their office to search Redding. That is force in the usual sense and meaning of the word.
"Force" is defined as "to compel by physical, moral, or intellectual means"
Darn. Those pesky facts always get in the way of a good argument!
The fact that the case was accepted for an en banc review, which is discretionary on the part of the Court and not an automatic right, suggests that the full court found some troubling issues in the 3 judge panel decision. It should be noted that the decision was not unanimous. In addition to the 2 judge decision, there is, as part of the decision, the heroic 1 judge dissent, which takes a different view of the matter and might have formed the basis for the Court granting an en banc rehearing.
I’m going to take a wild stab here, but the two judges on the wrong side are ‘rats and the one heroic judge is a conservative.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.