Search and Seizure: Supreme Court to Hear Case of School Girl Strip-Searched for Ibuprofen
The US Supreme Court agreed last Friday to review the case of a 13-year-old honor student who was subjected to a strip search by school officials looking for prescription-strength Ibuprofen. In doing so, it will once again revisit the contentious topic of just how far school officials can go in performing anti-drug searches that would be considered unconstitutional if conducted outside the school setting.
US Supreme Court
Redding's mother filed a lawsuit challenging the strip search as unconstitutional and seeking damages from the school district. A trial judge dismissed the lawsuit against school officials, ruling that they were immune from suit. A three-judge panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, but was overturned in a 6-5 vote by the full court, which ruled that the suit could go forward against the assistant principal who ordered the search.
The 9th Circuit majority was scathing in its opinion. "It does not require a constitutional scholar to conclude that a nude search of a 13-year-old child is an invasion of constitutional rights of some magnitude," Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw wrote for the majority, quoting a decision in another case. "More than that: it is a violation of any known principle of human dignity."
But in his dissent, Judge Michael Daly Hawkins said that while the case was "a close call" given the "humiliation and degradation" endured by Redding, school officials were "not unreasonable" in ordering the search. "I do not think it was unreasonable for school officials, acting in good faith, to conduct the search in an effort to obviate a potential threat to the health and safety of their students. I would find this search constitutional," he wrote, "and would certainly forgive the Safford officials' mistake as reasonable."
Now, the Supreme Court must decide two questions: "Whether the Fourth Amendment prohibits school officials from conducting a search of a student suspected of possessing and distributing prescription drugs, and whether the 9th Circuit departed from established principles of qualified immunity in holding that a public school administrator may be liable in a damages lawsuit for conducting a search of a student."
The case is Redding v. Safford Unified School District #1, or, as it is now known with the school district appealing, Safford Unified School District v. Redding.
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redditWHAT?
Comment posted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/26/2009 - 10:59amNowhere should a 13 year old girl be made to take off her clothes for school officials. This is absolutely insane that any judge would say that this was a reasonable thing to do. So in acting in "good faith" they made an underage girl take off her clothes. Fucking sick. I hope that girl sues the pants(haha) off that schools administration.
Look at the Language
Comment posted by Anonymous on Mon, 01/26/2009 - 7:35pmThey pulled a 13 year old girl in to the principals office, asked her if she had given "prescription drugs" to another student, she said no. The desire to keep the school Drug free. makes since, i know i would want my kids in a drug free school. Don't you?
BUT here is where things get a little hinky. "prescription-strength Ibuprofen" is not real a drug so much as a big over-the-counter pain pill. The search given sounds about the same as those given in Juvenile detention centers, to screen newly jailed youth for drugs and weapons. i know, i worked in one for years, the "pull your bra to the side and shake it" is common in places that house jailed teens.
what i find so interesting and so so so disturbing is that school officials are A. Wasting their time with prescription-strength Ibuprofen. B. Striping children over prescription-strength Ibuprofen/ and C. our nations highest court is now involved with some backwoods fear-based bullshit touted as keeping our children safe. This poor girl will likely remember the day she was pulled in to the office and forced by those in power to take off all her clothing, OVER what again.. oh yah prescription-strength Ibuprofen.
This is insane, the adult that made this decision and all those who allowed it to happen have shown the total lack of common sense and calm rational thinking needed to educate and care for our children and should be FIRED.
Imagine if you will, being called in to your bosses office, he/she shuts the door, asks you to have a seat. Your boss now asks you if you gave a co-worker prescription-strength Ibuprofen. He/she reads the office Zero tolerance policy, and and tells you that he/she thinks you have violated this policy. A search of your vehicle (on company property) has turned up no prescription-strength Ibuprofen, nor did the search of your work space. you are then told to remove your outer clothing, and pull the crotch of your underwear to the side, and shake it.
None of us would stand for any such foolishness. when it comes to our children, they need more protection than we do, not less. if my child's principle asks my kid to take his/her cloths off, RUNNING AWAY AS FAST AS THEY CAN is the right thing to do.
Honestly Arrest that pedophile.
again. prescription-strength Ibuprofen.
OK, now shake it some more!!!
Comment posted by Anonymous on Wed, 01/28/2009 - 12:20pmI will be very curious to see what the Supreme Court decides in this case because I feel these invasions of our privacy are the wave of the future. How could the prohibitionist regime continue for 95 years now despite its utter failure if it were not supported within the bowels of the criminal syndicate that is our Federal Government. If we could strip search Washington DC we would be horrified by the contraband hidden within it's colon. Barak Uncletomma is just more of the same and when one looks at the drug war in black and white it should be clear to this nation's first mulatto president what "change" should mean. Thanks in part to Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, blacks "represent 12% of the US population, 13% of drug users, 35% of arrests for drug possession, 55% of convictions for drug possession, and 74% of prison sentences for drug possession."
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) while commenting on an ambassador in 1848 said "Ordinarily he is insane, but he has lucid moments when he is only stupid." While Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
Our drug policy is stupid on a good day-mostly it's insane. If change comes it won't be from DC.
NOW I understand their argument.......
Comment posted by Anonymous on Sun, 01/25/2009 - 5:31pm"You see, your Honor, I HAD to stick my finger up the girl's pussy to find out if there were any dangerous, DANGEROUS DRUGS up there!"