WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a school's strip search of an Arizona teenage girl accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal.
In an 8-1 ruling, the justices said school officials violated the law with their search of Savana Redding in the rural eastern Arizona town of Safford.
Redding, who now attends college, was 13 when officials at Safford Middle School ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear because they were looking for pills — the equivalent of two Advils. The district bans prescription and over-the-counter drugs and the school was acting on a tip from another student.
"What was missing from the suspected facts that pointed to Savana was any indication of danger to the students from the power of the drugs or their quantity, and any reason to suppose that Savana was carrying pills in her underwear," Justice David Souter wrote in the majority opinion. "We think that the combination of these deficiencies was fatal to finding the search reasonable."
In a dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas found the search legal and said the court previously had given school officials "considerable leeway" under the Fourth Amendment in school settings.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090625/ap_ ... RzYXlzc3Ry
Quick quibble from a non-lawyer: I thought the Supreme Court ruled things constitutional or unconstitutional, so that this action by the school district would be unconstitutional, not illegal (though I'd imagine there's obviously overlap in those two statements). Could someone correct me on this?
To the article: I think it's great news. I'm not at all surprised Clarence Thomas was the one dissenting opinion on the ruling, but other than that, I think it's great news.
