The Supreme Court today announced its decision in Safford Unified School District v. Redding.

The school district had strip-searched a 13-year-old female student after another female student alleged that she had obtained a prescription-strength ibuprofen from the 13 year-old.  The school did not alert the student’s parents or summon police prior to having the school nurse and an administrative assistant require the girl to remove her clothing in a closed office.

The court ruled that the search violated the girl’s rights under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids “unreasonable searches”. 

As the Washington Post Reports, the court reported an 8-1 decision, with Justice Clarence Thomas the lone dissenter.  Apparently, Justice Thomas would have deferred to the discretion of the school administrators, writing in his dissent that “"Judges are not qualified to second-guess the best manner for maintaining quiet and order in the school environment.“

As far as that statement goes, it’s a platitudinous truism.  What judges supposedly are qualified to do is recognize patently unconstitutional actions of low-level bureaucrats when they see it.

They wouldn’t have searched her unless they were pretty sure. Or FELT pretty sure, let’s put it that way. But just because the searcher is pretty sure doesn’t mean the searchee isn’t one step ahead. (refer to my personal story post, several below this one)

Then again I’m dealing with people, here, who think the Gitmos detainees are innocent. So what can I expect?!

Anyway enough. Bill’s mad at me, Greta’s mad. All I did was tell it like I see it.

“The girl was guilty.“

Sez the red queen.  “Off with her head!“

How in the hell can you make that assertion?  Upon what evidence?  They searched her backpack, they searched her outer clothes, they unconstitutionally strip-searched her and found - NOTHING.  And yet Larry declares that she was “guilty” because he knows better than the 8 SCOTUS justices.

And the fact that you might have been strip searched or had drugs on your person has ZERO bearing on this case.  The case is not about whether Larry might at one point have had drugs on his person or whether Larry has ever been strip searched.  How the hell is your personal experience relevant in even the slightest way here?  Answer: it isn’t.

In my early years as a licensed driver, I accumulated several speeding tickets - some of them for excessively speeding.  I have that personal experience of being pulled over - and rightly so - on several occasions for driving way too fast.  Does that mean that when you get pulled over, you are “guilty” of speeding?

The school administrators might have “felt” they had good cause to strip search her - which is what EVERY law enforcement officer or other low-level goverment official claims when caught abusing the constitutional rights of citizens.  But regardless of what they felt, if you look at the FACTS, you will see otherwise. 

And so now 8 of our justices are “renegade”?  Even you can’t possibly believe what you’re arguing now.  You’re just jerking my chain at this point.  Otherwise, it’s pretty sad.

I’ll ask again - where is the line drawn?  Would a body cavity search have been acceptable?  I mean, after all, she was “guilty” and they “knew it” and they “felt” they had good reason to do it.

Good post Bill-I am glad to be informed that the other girl did have an Advil and some naproxen pills on her.
It does not change a thing of course.
Except to present the point that SHE may have been “lying her butt off.“
Any professional school administrator should know that never taking one child’s word over another child’s word is
rule number one in student discipline.
The court has now set a precedent and this kind of shameful stupid incident should not happen again.

Bill, where did I confirm that I knew nothing about the case??? True, I only know what I’ve read in the news…

...but allow me, Dear Angry Man, to answer a couple of your questions, if you don’t mind please:

Q: So how can you arrive at your opinion when you don’t know what actually happened?

A: Because I’m not on the Supreme Court. Also something very important that maybe you don’t have—personal experience being searched, incl strip searched. And having drugs on my person. Bill, there’s a very good saying applicable here: ‘You Can’t Fool an Old Fool’, and its variant ‘You Can’t Bullshit and Old Bullshit Artist.‘

The girl was guilty. She just didn’t get ‘technically’ caught. She & her parents are inflamed because she was called to task in the first place. ‘How DARE you accuse me of such a thing. Why, why…I NEVER!‘ (Been there, done that Bill!) The strip search issue they are using as revenge to get back at the school.

Q: “If you had read the case, or any of the published accounts of it (there have been many), in fact the school did NOT have ‘very good reason’ to believe she was guilty, nor to believe she was ‘lying her butt off’ about it.“

A: According to you. (And the renegade justices). But NOT to the school! They felt they had plenty of good cause. Other than that, please refer again to my other answer above.

Larry -

O.K., thanks for confirming that you have not read anything about the facts of this case.  So how can you arrive at your opinion when you don’t know what actually happened?

As far as whether the school has a history of anything in particular, that is almost entirely irrelevant.  The question is what happened in THIS case.  In fact, as a general rule of evidence, you cannot introduce evidence of past actions that have no relevance on whethere someone behaved as alleged in the particular case.  In other words, just because you have been known to exceed the speed limit on several occasions before, that doesn’t mean you actually were speeding when the cop pulled you over this time.  Similarly, whether or not the school administrators had a habit of searching the kids, the question is what did they do in THIS case, and were their actions “reasonable” (the constitutional standard for searches), given the circumstances?  In all cases, reasonableness is determined in light of the facts and circumstances.  What is reasonable in one particular set of circumstances could well be completely unreasonable in a different set.

In general, it would be improper and incorrect to look at what the school has tended to do in other circumstances.  That has no bearing whatsoever on whether its actions in THIS particular case were constitutional.

This wasn’t some “small case that some jack-rabbit parents didn’t like.“ 

If you had read the case, or any of the published accounts of it (there have been many), in fact the school did NOT have “very good reason” to believe she was guilty, nor to believe she was “lying her butt off” about it. 

AND - even if she was - let’s say the school DID have good reason to believe she did have prescription-strength Advil on her, in violation of school rules (which, in this case, they so plainly did NOT).  Does that make their actions reasonable?  NO.  Which is what the Court found.  Even though the administrators had some degree of reasonable suspicion, the facts did not warrant the extreme intrusiveness of a strip search - especially when we’re talking about a 13-year-old girl. 

You think it’s o.k. for school administrators - who are not law enforcement officers, nor trained in performing criminal investigations or matters of constitutional law (which is very important in conducting searches and siezures) - to strip search a 13-year-old girl?  Because she might have an Advil on her?

How about this: they think she has an Advil on her.  CALL THE PARENTS!  Call the police.  But no freaking way do you corner and strip-search a 13-year old because ONE other girl, who was found to have an Advil and some naproxen pills, claimed she got it from the other girl.  Again, I suggest you read the facts of the case.  They are pretty egregious and in fact unconstitutional, as 8 of the 9 justices plainly agreed.

I’m actually a bit surprised how much power and authority you’re willing to yield to such low-level bureaucrats. 

From the opinion:

“both subjective and reasonable societal expectations of personal privacy support the treatment of such a search as categorically distinct, requiring distinct elements of justification on the part of school authorities for going beyond a search of outer clothing and belongings.“

“Here, the content of the suspicion failed to match the degree of intrusion.“

“Parents are known to overreact to protect their children from danger, and a school official with responsibility for safety may tend to do the same. The difference is that the Fourth Amendment places limits on the official, even with the high degree of deference that courts must pay to the educator’s professional judgment.“

Ok Bill—I’m sorry. And look, I’m not wishing that all school kids get searched for minor things—but at the same time I don’t believe that (this particular school involved) is aimin’ to do that either.

Question: Does this particular school have a history of frivolous searches and/or harassment?

Where am I going with that? Why did I ask that? you wonder

Well because that much ought to’ve been taken into consideration, preferably before it got all the way to the supreme court.

I’m thinking that this school doesn’t routinely harass its students with ridiculous searches from no cause AND that it went so far to do so, though, in this case, because they had very good reason to believe the girl was guilty as hell & also lying her butt off about it.

Which means, basically, that I agree with Thomas’s view: That the supreme court ought not jump way down into school authority matters like that, every small case that some jack-rabbit parent doesn’t like.

Larry -

Do me a favor and stop telling me what I think or what my beliefs are.  You’re engaging in straw-man arguing.  You ascribe to me a position or belief that I don’t actually hold, because it suits your argument better. 

First, as I have explained in the past, I am not a Libertarian.  I do have libertarian tendencies and beliefs, but that does not make me a Libertarian anymore than my general believe in democratic principles makes me a Democrat (which I so clearly am not).  We’ve had this discussion before, yet you persist in telling me I’m Libertarian when I have explained that I am not.  I’m also not so much a Republican anymore, even though I believe a republican government can work very well. 

And you honestly believe the Supreme Court justices had an opinion on this case long ago?  Each of them sat around thinking up this factual scenario and decided how he or she would rule on it?  You’re saying that every justice (except Thomas, who was the lone dissenter) on the Supreme Court today is “Libertarian” and “hates searches”? 

And don’t tell me I “hate searches in general.“  That’s silly.  It’s like saying “you hate hammers in general.“  A search is a tool, much like a hammer is.  It can be used correctly and for good, or it can be misused for bad.  A search can be a legitimate tool for police to use in conducting a criminal investigation.  Which is quite different than what happened in this case. 

Your list of numbered statements is almost entirely beside the point and largely begs the question.  You have all but convicted and sentenced the 13-year old girl.  You presume – as the school administrators in the case did (improperly and apparently incorrectly) that she was in fact guilty of what the other girl accused her of.  They did not “have the goods on her.”  There was no – ZERO – objective, reliable evidence that she had actually given an ibuprofen to anyone.

It seems to me your position unfortunately is based on a fundmental lack of understanding of what the Fourth Amendment guarantees and why.  And what the actual, legitimate issue of this case was. 

Let me ask you this: where is the line drawn?  Would a body cavity search have been acceptable?

No Bill, actually I’m serious here. Why not own up to the truth?—You’ll feel better if you do. You’re a Libertarian & you hate searches in general. It ISN’T that you just feel sorry for little Motrin Molly. Like wolves in the forest, you & Bart lick your chops when you see stuff like this. And so did those Supreme Court justices—I think their opinion was formed long before they even heard of lil’ Allison Advil. This case gave ‘em the opportunity to use it—they ‘scored’.

Remember:

(1.) Dispensing prescription drugs is a federal crime.
(2.) School admins HAVE CHILDREN TOO! They don’t search kids for the fun of it. They had the goods on her, they just couldn’t find it.
(5.) This supreme court decision will be reversed one day, by a different court, once again making such searches “constitutional”.—Its just a silly back & forth lawyers game.
(6.) Parents should encourage kids to abide by rules, NOT to buck against authority & sue it every possible chance.
(7.) Unless the parents are Libertarian.

Ed: “Ambiguous”?  What is ambiguous?  Have you read the SCOTUS opinion?  Are at all familiar with the facts of the case?  As far as money damages, it seems she’s getting none.  I guess it never occurred to you that perhaps she and her family pursued the case because they were convinced that the school administrators had acted wrongly and they could not allow that horrible precedent to go unchallenged. 

Larry: I have to believe you’re trolling here.  I mean, I would hate to think you’re actually serious.  Because if you are, you are so shockingly missing the point, it’s scary.

It has nothing to do with whether or not the girl actually did hand another girl an ibuprofen.  Although the fact that there is no discernable, reliable, objective evidence that she actually did is another point in her favor.  But whether or not she did have an ibuprofen - and let’s not forget that’s what they were looking for - not a gun, or a knife, or a syringe, or crack or heroine - the issue is whether they violated her constitutional right to be free from “unreasonable” searches. See U.S. Const., Fourth Amdt.

Bob,

I’m not sure what “altruistically smug” means, but it does sound like an interesting putdown all the same.

I was not saying money matters have no bearing on court cases. I fully realize lawyers cost money and sometimes do good work, worth every penny.

No, all I was saying is that most people seem to act as if money grubbing is beneath them until it is their turn to squeeze the cash cow on the udders. Then suddenly, big change. All of a sudden people get opportunistic and mercenary. Did it happen here ?

You have to wonder if her parents don’t see those big milky cash cows looming large. If you don’t see that as a real possibility you would be terribly naive.

Sure, sure, they didn’t want this awful thing to happen, but as soon as it did and they consulted a lawyer, things got serious.  Possibility anyway. Her grief and anguish amplified to the tune of a big juicy lawsuit.

If she is alledgedly passing low level drugs to her schoolmates and getting into occasional trouble why oh why should anyone assume she is pure and innocent and nothing but victim. The school authorities may have been in the wrong, even on a legal basis, but I’m not convinced there is enough evidence she and/or her parents was victim.

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