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.
gain = again
Under what authority does he act in ordering a strip search?
Do you approve of searches by government entities without a search warrant, as is required by the Constitution?
Do you approve of public school principals ordering strip searches of young girls without parental knowledge or police involvement?
Do you approve of strip searches by people not trained or qualified to give them?
SO you approve of strip searches for items that are not illegal or contraband?
Would you approve of a strip search of yourself or your children on anybody’s whim?
TLO, the binding original case were all school cases are precident are over, was a case of smoking in the girls room. The purse was searched for smokes. There was no strip search for more smokes. In TLO, the parents were also called after the container search.
We join the majority of courts that have examined this issue FN6 in concluding that the accommodation of the privacy interests of schoolchildren with the substantial need of teachers and administrators for freedom to maintain order in the schools does not require strict adherence to the requirement that searches be based on probable cause to believe that the subject of the search has violated or is violating the law. Rather, the legality of a search of a student should depend simply on the reasonableness, under all the circumstances, of the search. Determining the reasonableness of any search involves a twofold inquiry: first, one must consider “whether **743 the ... action was justified at its inception,” Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S., at 20, 88 S.Ct., at 1879; second, one must determine whether the search as actually conducted “was reasonably related in scope to the circumstances which justified the interference in the first place,” ibid. Under ordinary circumstances, a search of a student by a teacher or other school official FN7 will be *342 “justified at its inception” when there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that the search will turn up evidence that the student has violated or is violating either the law or the rules of the school.FN8 Such a search will be permissible in its scope when the measures adopted are reasonably related to the objectives of the search and not excessively intrusive in light of the age and sex of the student and the nature of the infraction.FN9 (Emphasis mine)
This standard will, we trust, neither unduly burden the efforts of school authorities to maintain order in their schools *343 nor authorize unrestrained intrusions upon the privacy of schoolchildren. By focusing attention on the question of reasonableness, the standard will spare teachers and school administrators the necessity of schooling themselves in the niceties of probable cause and permit them to regulate their conduct according to the dictates of reason and common sense. At the same time, the reasonableness standard should ensure that the interests of students will be invaded no more than is necessary to achieve the legitimate end of preserving order in the schools.
A strip search was necessary for ADVIL? As they said on the Home Improvement show, I don't think so, Tim.
Your witness, Counselor.
Wasting your time!
Drugs and weapons, not smokes.
Thanks for trying.
I just love the smell of fresh zot in the evening.
There’s another one brewing over on another thread with what appears to be a closet phelps supporter, if you’re interested.
Yeah, let’s get outa here. The stench of fascism is too overwhelming.
She was asked, not ordered. Don't assume your premise.
Told you.
But it’s fun.
BTW, your tagline is so applicable.
Thanks. Where’s the ZOT thread. I’m turning purple from holding my breath.
that Wilson proceeded to order the challenged search.
Reading comprehension issues again?
Clearly.
So the question remains unanswered, as usual:
Under what authority does he [Wilson] act in ordering a strip search?
The search, not a strip search. Her bags were searched, her person was untouched.
All knowing again...you say she was asked. Where you there? How do you exactly know what went on in that room? You don’t, we don’t. But any normal parent would be very angry over this. Therefore I have to say you are by no means normal. I hope you and robertpaulsen get the help you both need.
From the actual decision:
Wilson told Redding that he had received a report that she had been passing the pills out to her classmates and asked Redding if she would object to being searched. Redding denied bringing pills to school, denied distributing pills to her classmates, and told Wilson that she did not mind being searched. Wilson then invited Romero into his office, and together, they conducted a search of Redding’s backpack. After the search proved fruitless, Wilson asked Romero to take Redding into the nurse’s office and conduct a search of her person. Romero complied.
Pesky old facts.
Her person was searched.
There was no need for it.
Any normal person not only would have not ordered a girl to strip down to her underwear and pull it away from her body to expose what was underneath, any normal person would have refused to do it. And certainly any normal person would not ever be caught dead in a million years participating or condoning this gross violation of a citizens Constitutional rights.
All those involved or approving can only be classified as absolute statist, totalitarian perverts.
Huxley would have been proud of YOU.
So you also approve or fear tactics? Do you also approve of humiliating 13 year old girls? Is this what you really think is appropriate?
"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..... She called it "the most humiliating experience I have ever had.
So you also approve or fear tactics?=So you also approve of fear tactics?
Here’s a pesky fact for you- I don’t think underage girls should be able to consent to a strip search without their parents consent- unless LEOs are conducting it under lawful circumstances. Minor girls cannot legally consent to sex with someone in most states- it is still illegal for that reason- so why should they be able to consent to a strip search?
No matter what the law or a court says- we should not condone strip searching teen age girls by school officials. It is just wrong, and there is no court decision or rule that will make me feel otherwise.
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