Search and Seizure

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 6/25/09 CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; [email protected] U.S. Supreme Court Declares Strip Search Of 13-Year-Old Student Unconstitutional Ruling In ACLU Case Is Vindication of Students' Constitutional Rights WASHINGTON - The U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old Arizona girl when they strip searched her based on a classmate's uncorroborated accusation that she previously possessed ibuprofen. The American Civil Liberties Union represents April Redding, the plaintiff in the lawsuit, whose daughter, Savana Redding, was strip searched by Safford Middle School officials six years ago. "We are pleased that the Supreme Court recognized that school officials had no reason to strip search Savana Redding and that the decision to do so was unconstitutional," said Adam Wolf, an attorney with the ACLU who argued the case before the Court. "Today's ruling affirms that schools are not constitutional dead zones. While we are disappointed with the Court's conclusion that the law was not clear before today and therefore school officials were not found liable, at least other students will not have to go through what Savana experienced." Savana Redding, an eighth grade honor roll student at Safford Middle School in Safford, Arizona, was pulled from class on October 8, 2003 by the school's vice principal, Kerry Wilson. Earlier that day, Wilson had discovered prescription-strength ibuprofen - 400 milligram pills equivalent to two over-the-counter ibuprofen pills, such as Advil - in the possession of Redding's classmate. Under questioning and faced with punishment, the classmate claimed that Redding, who had no history of disciplinary problems, had given her the pills. After escorting Redding to his office, Wilson demanded that she consent to a search of her possessions. Redding agreed, wanting to prove she had nothing to hide. Wilson did not inform Redding of the reason for the search. Joined by a female school administrative assistant, Wilson searched Redding's backpack and found nothing. Instructed by Wilson, the administrative assistant then took Redding to the school nurse's office in order to perform a strip search. In the school nurse's office, Redding was ordered to strip to her underwear. She was then commanded to pull her bra out and to the side, exposing her breasts, and to pull her underwear out at the crotch, exposing her pelvic area. The strip search failed to uncover any ibuprofen pills. "The strip search was the most humiliating experience I have ever had," said Redding in a sworn affidavit following the incident. "I held my head down so that they could not see that I was about to cry." The strip search was undertaken based solely on the uncorroborated claims of the classmate facing punishment. No attempt was made to corroborate the classmate's accusations among other students or teachers. No physical evidence suggested that Redding might be in possession of ibuprofen pills or that she was concealing them in her undergarments. Furthermore, the classmate had not claimed that Redding currently possessed any pills, nor had the classmate given any indication as to where they might be concealed. No attempt was made to contact Redding's parents prior to conducting the strip search. In response to today's ruling, Redding said, "I wanted to make sure that no other person would have to go through this, so I am pleased by the Court's decision. I'm glad to have helped make students feel safer in school." The case, Safford Unified School District v. Redding, was appealed from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which found the strip search to be unconstitutional. A six-judge majority of the appeals court further held that, since the strip search was clearly unreasonable, the school official who ordered the search is not entitled to immunity. In today's Supreme Court decision, despite deeming the strip search of Redding unconstitutional, the Court found that the school officials involved are immune from liability. The decision leaves open the possibility, however, that the Safford Unified School district could be held liable. "Neither the Constitution nor common sense permits school officials to treat a strip search the same as a locker or backpack search," said Steven R. Shapiro, the ACLU's national Legal Director. "Today's ruling eliminates any confusion that school officials may have had about this seemingly obvious point." The ACLU and ACLU of Arizona were joined in the case by Bruce Macdonald, with the law firm McNamara, Goldsmith, Jackson & Macdonald, and Andrew Petersen, with the firm Humphrey & Petersen. In addition, a broad constellation of adolescent health experts and privacy rights advocates filed friend-of-the-court briefs in support of Redding, including the National Education Association, National Association of Social Workers (NASW), CATO Institute, Rutherford Institute, Goldwater Institute and Urban Justice Center, among others. Today's decision is available online at: www.aclu.org/drugpolicy/search/40031lgl20090625.html The ACLU's brief in the case is available online at: www.aclu.org/scotus/2008term/saffordunifiedschooldistrictv.redding/39160lgl20090325.html

Below the Florida Times-Union Senior Columnist Tonya Weathersbee provides a disturbing analysis of an aspect of the failure of the War on Drugs. Please consider writing and sending a Letter to the Editor of the Florida Times Union expressing your reaction to this column. Thanks for your effort and support. It's not what others do it's what YOU do. ********************************************************************** Contact: Florida Times-Union http://www.jacksonville.com/aboutus/letters_to_editor.shtml Pubdate: Mon, 26 May 2008 Source: Florida Times-Union (FL) Copyright: 2008 The Florida Times-Union Author: Tonyaa Weathersbee, The Times-Union SOME ARE DRIVEN TO CRIME BY ECONOMIC DESPERATION Ruth Davis says she isn't on drugs. But she was desperate. She's also a cautionary tale. According to a recent McClatchy News Service story, the Miami grandmother is sitting in a North Carolina jail. She's been there since December. That was when a state trooper nabbed her as she was transporting 33 pounds of marijuana to New York. He stopped Davis for speeding, but then noticed a strong odor as she rolled down her car window. Her answers to the trooper's questions about her travel plans didn't jibe. So he asked if he could search her car. She agreed. But Davis didn't know he was going to call the dogs to help him look. Game over. Drug enforcement officials say that people like Davis, who is 65, are becoming part of a trend; that drug dealers are now recruiting elderly people to carry drugs because there's less of a chance that they will be stopped or profiled. There's also the chance that police will be disarmed by their sweetness and vulnerability. Davis, in fact, said that she had hoped to charm her way out of a speeding ticket. I almost wish that had worked for her. Because it wasn't greed that made Davis agree to become a drug mule. It was pain. It was the pain of not being able to pay the $20,000-plus that she owed doctors for treatment of a blood disease. It was the pain of seeing her daughter's face disfigured from a car crash, and not being able to help her pay the $3,000 needed for corrective plastic surgery. It was the pain that a person feels when hitting rock bottom with no safety net to catch her. It's a pain that has been exploited by drug dealers who recruit the desperate and the defeated. And just as the drug trade has become the dominant economy for many poor, inner-city communities, it's not surprising that as other safety nets begin to fray, more people will grab on to anything to stop their free fall. In Davis' case, that meant grabbing onto the promises of a drug dealer. Me, I'm not all that surprised that some elderly folks would be vulnerable to that kind of coercion. In some neighborhoods in which drug dealers are the closest thing to philanthropists that most people there will ever see, they help some old people pay bills. But while Davis wasn't exactly poor - she said she owns her own home and works as a diet consultant - her medical bills apparently still made it hard for her to make ends meet. And, in case we forget, soaring medical bills can plunge anyone into poverty. Or it can push them to make thoughtless choices. So when I see cases such as hers, I'm reminded of how the drug trade is fueled by different degrees of hopelessness. In the inner cities, you have kids who work as drug sellers and lookouts because few know the lure of legitimate work, because not much of that exists where they live. Then you have some people who sell drugs to supplement low-wage jobs. Unlike Davis, they aren't casualties of an emergency as much as they are casualties of an illicit economy that has usurped the legitimate economy. Then there's the hopelessness that turned Davis into a drug mule. Such hopelessness is the kind that overwhelms people who are being let down by what many have come to view as guarantees in American life; that if you pay your bills, obey the law, drink your milk and say your prayers, the system won't allow misfortunes like medical emergencies to make you destitute. Now I know that not every senior citizen who is faced with hardships is going to sell drugs. Yet, Davis' story still is a revealing one. Among other things, it illustrates, once again, the failure of the war on drugs. We fill our prisons and jails with nonviolent offenders like Davis - a woman who, ironically, became a felon to avoid becoming a deadbeat - as the kingpins go free. And even as people like Davis sit in jail, Americans continue to use drugs at about the same rate as they did when President Nixon declared a war on drugs in 1971. As long as that continues to happen, and as long as jobs continue to hemorrhage and medical costs continue to spiral, people will look for ways to survive. And the drug lords will be waiting. ********************************************************************** Additional suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism Center: http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides, or contact MAP's Media Activism Facilitator for tips on how to write LTEs that are printed. [email protected] ********************************************************************** PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER Please post a copy of your letter or report your action to the sent letter list ([email protected]) if you are subscribed, or by E-mailing a copy directly to [email protected] if you are not subscribed. Your letter will then be forwarded to the list so others can learn from your efforts. Subscribing to the Sent LTE list ([email protected]) will help you to review other sent LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches as well as keeping others aware of your important writing efforts.

Contact: Philippe Lucas, tel: 250-884-9821, E: [email protected] or Kirk Tousaw, tel: 604-836-1420, E: [email protected] In May of 2004, the Vancouver Island Therapeutic Cannabis Research Institute (VITCRI), a research and cultivation facility overseen by the Vancouver Island Compassion Society, was raided by the West Shore RCMP. Mat Beren and Michael Swallow were charged with multiple counts of cannabis production, and over 900 plants were seized and destroyed, temporarily leaving the critically and chronically ill members of the VICS without a safe source of medicine. The ensuing court case and Constitutional challenge - which is taking place from May 9th-18th in B.C. Supreme Court, 850 Burdett Avenue - will establish that the federal medical cannabis program is violating the constitutional rights of critically and chronically ill Canadians by a) unnecessarily restricting access to the program; b) supplying an inadequate source of cannabis; and c) instituting arbitrary limitations on production and distribution. "This ineffective, onerous and expensive program has long been an impediment to safe access" says Philippe Lucas, a medical cannabis user and founder of the VICS, "and clearly isn't protecting Canada's sickest citizens from arrest for their use of medical cannabis". The VICS legal team consists of Mr. John Conroy QC from Abbotsford, BC, and Mr. Kirk Tousaw. Witnesses for the defense include Senator Pierre-Claude Nolin (chair of the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs), Dr. Robert Melamede (Biology professor at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs). "We look forward to challenging the constitutionality of these regulations and demonstrating to the court that Health Canada is not meeting its obligations to Canada's critically and chronically ill", says Mr. Tousaw. If successful, this challenge will make the legal medical use of cannabis more accessible, and potentially legalize the community-based distribution of cannabis. A similar challenge in Ontario from 2003 resulted with the courts striking down the prohibition on the recreational adult use of cannabis in Ontario, thereby legalizing the personal use of cannabis for over 18 months. This case may lead to a similar outcome in B.C.