Supreme Court: Strip search of child illegal

Supreme Court: Strip search of child illegal

rawstory.com

By an eight-to-one verdict, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday morning that “a school’s strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal,”
MSNBC notes that the only justice who ruled the strip search of the child constitutional was Clarence Thomas.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Supreme Court: Strip search of child illegal , well thats a no brainer . Funny who the one hold out was eh ?

I can't help but wonder what the founding fathers would think of what the nation has become ? Well at least sanity won out in the end on this issue .

The provided link also has a short video on the story .


rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

We may be a nation of laws, but wisdom needs to be applied to create justice. That strip search was an unwise reaction to the "zero tolerance policy."

We do need to keep laws updated from time to time, letting go of some and creating new ones, but we need wisdom in heaps in this increasingly complex world.

8 to 1 decision. They went overboard in this case and am glad to see that common sense AND the law prevailed. Rarely do the 2 see eye to eye.

[edit on 25-6-2009 by djvexd]

reply to post by Max_TO


I've been following this case for quite awhile now. I'm really glad that they ruled that it was illegal, what they did to that girl was so wrong.

I'm really dissappionted by this part of their ruling though.....

The court tempered the impact of its ruling by saying that Redding can’t seek damages from the assistant principal who ordered the strip search because the right wasn’t “clearly established” at the time.

rawstory.com...

I don't feel that justice was properly served by not allowing her to sue the assistant principal and the two female staff members. Basically all the supreme court did was establish the fact that it was illegal, which everybody already knew. This ruling will help students in the future, but for this girl i don't feel they did enough for her. They all knew what they were doing to that girl was wrong, and now they have been allowed to get away with it

Originally posted by chise61

The court tempered the impact of its ruling by saying that Redding can’t seek damages from the assistant principal who ordered the strip search because the right wasn’t “clearly established” at the time.

That would seem to indicate that the currently sitting Supreme Court Justices do not believe that all men (humans, not gender) are endowed by their Creator with the full bundle of rights. The right, per the Constitution, was established when the Creator decided to create that girl (assuming you go in for that kind of thing). By claiming that the right was not established prior to the nine in black adjudicating the matter they seem to put themselves in the position of Creator.

I have been following this case for a while as well, but alas, I think I have to disagree with everyone slightly.

To start off with, I do agree that what was done to this poor girl was completely wrong. This was a serious invasion of privacy and an abuse of power.

The main thing I want to put forth is that the school had to do something, and I am glad they did. The administrators were given a tip from another student that this girl was distributing the medication. While in school, the school is liable for the children, and if I were a parent and I heard a kid in the school was distributing medications illegally, I would be on the phone in a heartbeat asking what was being done to control this problem. I certainly wouldn't want this other child to potenetially harm my child by giving them prescription pills illegally.

From this perspective, the administrators tried to act with the best intentions in mind, trying to protect the children (and also themselves, as they are liable for the kids). While the school administrators overreacted, I am glad they took a risk trying to keep people safe. Unfortunately the administrators went too far with their actions and violated the privacy of this young girl, I applaud the school for standing up and doing something.

Here is a link to another article with slightly more information (including the detail that she was accused of distributing medication by another student)

I sense a pedophile in the midst here...why would you strip search a girl for aspirin...an 8 yo girl at that. YOu could, idk, ask. Did they find anything on her?

reply to post by scarecrow58


It wasn't prescription pills, it was over the counter ibuprofen, the equavilent of two advils.

The other student that accused her of distributing pills did so to keep theirself out of trouble as (i believe it was another girl) she was herself facing disciplinary action. I can't locate the article, but i believe that it was discovered that the student that accused her was in fact the student that had the pills.

They had absolutely no right to strip search that girl (even under the absurd pretence of protecting other students from two advils ) under any circumstances. Once they had her in the office she was no longer a "danger" to the other students. From that point they should have called her parents into the school, and if they felt the need to further search her they should have called the authorities in.

reply to post by Viper0hr


She was 13 at the time, in 8th grade. They were looking for two advils, and no she had nothing on her. I believe they found out that the student that accused her, was in fact the student that had them.