SCOTUS leaning towards miscarriage of justice?
The case of Savana Redding, a 13 year old girl strip searched by her government school administration over allegations of having ibuprofen, was presented to the Supreme Court yesterday. Nina Totenberg of NPR provided her typical first rate preview of the case on Tuesday morning. Slate.com has details of the hearings that indicate some justices don’t have a problem with schools strip searching kids on the shakiest of evidence.
If the Supreme Court rules in favor of the school it will stand as their worst decision since Kelo vs. New London. I just don’t see how in the world anyone could countenance such actions.
You really need to look around and read about the details of this case. It will absolutely blow your mind. For example, here is one of the school’s arguments (from the NPR piece):
In its brief, the school says the fact that Redding was an honors student who had never been in trouble before is not evidence of good conduct, but only evidence that she had never been caught.
Sounds like the presumption of guilt.
Disturbing. Just disturbing.
I used to teach high school. I also have three children. I believe there is a place for reasonable searches of students.
Notice, I said REASONABLE. Searches for guns, other weapons, illegal drugs and anything else that could endanger other students are reasonable. Strip-searching a 13-year-old for an ibuprofen is not reasonable.
I agree with you that the basis of the school’s argument — that the school simply hadn’t caught her breaking the rules — is outrageous. If I was her lawyer, I would have to make this argument: Let’s grant their assumption for a moment. Let’s assume Savana Redding is some sort of evil genius who, at 13, had already mastered the art of fooling all the grown-ups in charge — administrators, teachers, guidance counselors, cafeteria workers watching over the milk, etc. By their own admission, they hadn’t gotten any evidence — not one shred — to indicate Savana’s evil-genius-ness. So … if they don’t have the judgment to figure out how to get that evidence, then how we they trust that same judgment when it comes to making a solid call on a strip search?
Good judgment: Either you have it, or you don’t.
The Court rewrote the Constitution with Kelo. They will be doing it again if they don’t come down on Redding’s side.
And this change, like that earlier one, will be anything but an improvement on the original.
Brian,
While I agree with you that what happened to this young lady not only disturbing but also intolerable, I’m not sure that it violates the U.S. Constitition.
In my interpretation it does violate the 4th Amendment:
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons … against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated …”
There is no way this was a “reasonable” search.
Brian,
Let’s just hope the majority of justices agree with your definition of reasonable.
Nina Totenberg doesn’t do anything first rate… except carry water for the left and bloat her already inflated ego.
I find Totenberg’s coverage of SCOTUS to be far more neutral and informative than, say, Dahlia Lithwick who wrote the Slate piece I linked to. She will redefine leftwing bias in SCOTUS coverage for you. If you can find a reporter (not a comentator) that does a better job of concisely framing SCOTUS cases or capturing the back and forth dialog between the justices than Totenberg I would love to know who it is.
Ther is an old saying in the legal profession “Bad facts made horrible law” – If the Court wishes to define the limits of school searches they should pick a better factual situation because this search offends the conscience.
Yeah, I guess Totenberg’s short summaries of SCOTUS cases are usually fine and her reporting of the back-and-forth during hearings is good. But I don’t trust her. MRC has several hundred items on her, and don’t forget this is the woman who caused the Anita Hill debacle and who once wished Jesse Helms would die of AIDS.
I think the Court will be very reluctant to set a precedent that invites an endless stream of lawsuits against public school officials, thereby forcing the courts to second-guess almost every disciplinary decision those officials make.
As the Court has recognized, the Fourth Amendment’s protections apply differently to students inside public schools than they do to citizens (minors included) on the streets of Huntsville, Alabama…for the simple reason that what is a “reasonable search” in a public school environment is very different from a “reasonable search” elsewhere. My guess is that in this case, the Court will defer to judgment of the school officials. As it should.
I’m not taking up for the school here, by the way. I think what they did here was every bit as ridiculous as you do. It’s another example of a zero tolerance policy run amok.
Still, it’s worth reflecting on how we got to the point where such unreasonable policies have become so pervasive. Is it because courts have intervened too <i>little</i> to protect students’ “rights”?
Ah. So basically, school officials can do anything they want to do to students under whatever flimsy excuse they wish and no one can say boo.
Sorry, but that’s not a country I want to live in.
No Jack, that’s not what I said. Even if the Supreme Court were to hold that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply to students in school at all (which it hasn’t and it won’t), students and their parents would still retain the avenues for redress provided for under the laws and constitution of the state in which they live.