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.
Oh I understand, I posted to it a few times and still await a response. Not that I expect a coherent one.
Just the usual MO. He’s not answering ANY questions.
“Just the usual MO. He’s not answering ANY questions.”
Might give away the whole dual identities thing, can’t have that now.
Michael Frazier
That was a short eulogy. You're not very sentimental are you? /s
That’d be my guess....
I just went through and compiled a partial list of questions that he has yet to answer. My apologies to anyone who I didn’t ping whose questions they might be.
Here is what I found. Questions asked directly of mojave that he has not yet answered:
***********************************************************
Do you approve of the actions of these school officials?
Why do you think it is ok to go searching the skivies of a teenage girl for an Advil?
Is it ok to do this if she “volunteers?”
What about it, Mojave? What do you do for a living?
If this is OK with you, then I take it you wouldn’t object if some half-witted school nurse of company nurse strip searched you on some other employees baseless accusation?
Why aren’t you answering the questions?
Is it OK with you that someone would do this to you?
Is it OK with you that someone would do this to your children?
Do you think the schools should have the right to force a child to strip down to their underwear and then pull the underwear off so that their private parts are exposed for people to see?
Are you a public school principal?
So you’re a welfare deadbeat, then? Sucking off society for food and medical care?
I don't care for how the 9th equated a strip search on the same level as a container search/Terry stop. The one thing they had solid evidence was is the planner - and we don't know how the knives and pills got into the planner. Was there enough for a pocket search? Under precident, yes. Strip search? nope. I can not believe this passed the scope test. This is advil. A 400mg ibreprohen(sp) pill is 2 advil. That's it. Normal dose. This isn't even Codine. The court recklessly dismissed that. Parents wern't called is considered reasonable? All of this was based on the loaning of a planner and some statements of other students without collaberating evidence of extremely scared students. On governmental interest - Tobacco isn't enough for a strip search according to a persuasive non-binding authority (another circuit). Tobacco is illegal by most LAWS in school. Advil is not.
I agree 100% with the dissent here. I hope this is reversed en blanc or by SCOTUS. What a piss poor decision, and I don't care who appointed the judges.
Ash was a site pest. He got to be something of a fixture before he finally wore out his welcome and got hisself banned.
People used to ping each other to watch the show when he turned up on a thread by issuing an ‘Ash Alert’.
Say, have you been following this thread? It isn’t over yet. rp got a replacement.
Yes, indeed. After a moment's reconsideration of my last post I think your husband would be busy trying to put you in some kind of restraints. I'd really hate to be the EMT that had to tend to his wounds. ;^)
Thank you for the “Ash” explanation.
Did you come for the entertainment in the thread?
Never would have guessed that. Thanks.
I use it because I’m lazy :)
Welcome back, Twink! Join the party.
I use it, too, for the same reason.
I think you have him pegged.
Nahhhhh, job hunting...
I’d have to read too many posts to know what’s going on since the other night.
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